Martina Navratilova loves being married: “It changes your life … You just feel much stronger”

Marriage is agreeing with newlywed Martina Navratilova.

Martina and Julia Lemigova had already been together for more than six years by the time they got married last month.

It has already made all the difference.

‘I want to write an article about it, how much it changes your life,’ the tennis legend tells The New York Times.

‘You just feel much stronger. For me, it’s: Don’t mess with my relationship. Don’t mess with my family. It really gives you validation and gives you kind of a wall that you can lean on if something happens.’

Navratilova, 58, proposed to Lemigova, 42, at the US Open last fall – a moment captured on live television.

The winner of a record nine Wimbledon singles titles is noticing changes large and small as a married woman.

‘Just the other day I was at a doctor’s office filling out a form, and for the first time I wrote married instead of single, and then I wrote Julia’s name in case of an emergency contact, and then where it asked for relationship, I wrote wife, and it was like wow, O.K., this is cool. Nobody can mess with that.

‘You don’t have to explain. There it is, and the legal protections you get from being married are astronomical.’

Lemigova, a Russian businesswoman and former model, was Miss USSR in 1990 and was second runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant.

‘Julia and I are not any more committed to each other than we were before our marriage,’ Martina says. ‘But in the eyes of the law we are, and that’s great. And the kids feel a lot better about it, most of all.’

Lemigova is the mother of two daughters so the marriage officially made Navratilova a step-parent.

‘I just got a text sending love from “your daughters,” so yes they are my daughters, and it’s pretty cool,’ she says. ‘I’ve been in their lives the majority of their lives. They’ve thought about me as a parent for a long time, but now, again, it’s validated.

‘They just feel safer, feel much more secure. It’s funny seeing that. I see a real difference, and it also gives me a little more confidence to be the parent.’