Just weeks from her 50th birthday, Martina Navratilova walked onto a court at the 2006 US Open and won a major title in mixed doubles, 32 years after her first. That staggering longevity is the thread running through a life spent constantly re-engineering herself on and off the court.

This deep dive follows her from communist Czechoslovakia and her defection at 18 through her total physical and technological reinvention, her rivalries, her outspoken activism, and her battles with her own health.

• Why her defection was a calculated necessity against a federation that owned her career
• Rebuilding her body with basketball-style training and graphite rackets after a crushing loss to Chris Evert
• Serve-and-volley tactics that extended her dominance against younger prodigies like Steffi Graf
• Coming out in 1981 and  ...