Tennis great Martina Navratilova diagnosed with throat and breast cancer

Greenham said that Navratilova, who now works as a tennis presenter on television and radio, will not travel to Melbourne for the Jan 16-29 Australian Open but hopes to contribute to the broadcasts remotely.

Martina Navratilova, one of the game's icons and a winner of 18 Grand Slam tournaments, got simultaneous diagnoses of throat and breast cancer, which came as a tremendous shock to the tennis community. The world's tennis great's fans and admirers are shocked by this news. In a conversation with the BBC, Navratilova said that both cancers had been identified early. "The double whammy is serious, but fixable, and I'm hoping for a favourable outcome," she said. "It's going to stink for a while, but I'll fight with all I have got," Navratilova said. Later this month, she will fly to New York for medical care.

In fact, Navratilova's assistant spoke to The Guardian about her illness and the next stage of treatment. "Martina Navratilova has been diagnosed with stage one throat cancer," read the statement. "The prognosis is good and Martina will start her treatment this month."

"The cancer type is HPV and this particular type responds really well to treatment. Martina noticed an enlarged lymph node in her neck during the WTA finals in Fort Worth. When it didn't go down, a biopsy was performed, the results came back as stage one throat cancer. At the same time as Martina was undergoing the tests for the throat, a suspicious form was found in her breast, which was subsequently diagnosed as cancer, completely unrelated to the throat cancer," the statement added. However, the good news is that both malignancies were found early on and may be treated.

"Both these cancers are in their early stages with great outcomes. Martina won't be covering the Australian Open for Tennis Channel from their studio but hopes to be able to join in from time to time by Zoom," the statement concluded