SEMANSKA, AGNES (Agnes "Anežka" Boučková)
Czechoslovakia
Born circa 1906
Married name: Semanska
Active circa 1925-30.
A little-known player, Agnes Semanska was the maternal grandmother of Martina Navratilova. An article on the then 18-year-old Martina, carried in the American publication Sports Illustrated in February 1975, stated that Martina’s grandmother, Agnes Semanska, “now 69, had been ranked no. 2 in Czechoslovakia before World War II”. Some sources also state that Agnes Semanska won several tennis tournaments before World II.
Martina Navratilova also mentions her paternal grandmother, Andela Subertova, in her autobiography of 1985 (co-written with George Vecsey and published in the UK and Ireland under the title Being Myself). The following excerpt from the encyclopedia.com website provides more information on Martina’s background, including her grandparents.
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From encyclopedia.com
https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/...transcripts-and-maps/navratilova-martina-1956
Martina Navratilova was barely six years old when she first stepped onto a tennis court. “The moment I stepped onto that crunchy red clay, felt the grit under my sneakers, felt the joy of smacking a ball over the net,” she said of that day in 1962 in her native Czechoslovakia, “I knew I was in the right place.” Tennis would bring her, among other things, a settled childhood in the midst of political upheaval, a means to escape Communist oppression, and a way to make her way in her adopted homeland.
Tennis was a constant in her family background. Martina’s [maternal] grandmother Agnes Semanska had once beaten Vera Sukova to win a Czech national tournament, while an uncle had played at the national level; and her mother Jana Semanska had once seemed destined for similar honors until giving up a tennis career rather than submit to a father who drove her relentlessly to better her game.
Jana chose skiing as a replacement sport and was working as a ski instructor at a resort near the German border when she met and married Miroslav Subert (pronounced Shubert) and moved with him to a village in the Krkonose mountains in which the chief business was a ski resort called Martinovka. The resort provided them both with employment (Miroslav was the chief of the resort’s ski patrol) and also the name for their daughter, born on October 18, 1956, in Prague, where Jana’s family were still living. In keeping with Eastern European tradition, the child carried a feminine version of her father's last name and was known as Martina Subertova. Jana’s return to Martinovka with her baby provided Martina with her earliest memories of gliding down brilliant white mountains under bright blue skies.
After three years of marriage, however, Jana found it increasingly difficult to deal with the erratic moods of her highly emotional husband. She left him to return with Martina to a single room on her mother’s estate in the town of Revnice, just outside Prague, where Martina grew up in the bosoms of her beloved maternal and paternal grandmothers.
Jana had grown up privileged on this estate which once boasted 30 acres and a grove of fruit trees. Following the Communist takeover in 1948, the estate was confined to the house (now shared with other families) and the red-clay tennis court which was falling into disrepair and used more often for soccer games. “I think my mother and my grandmother carried a sense of litost, a Czech word for sadness, that I picked up,” wrote Navratilova, “a feeling of loss at the core of their souls.”
In later years, Navratilova would barely remember Miroslav, but would trace her sense of dislocation to his sudden loss. Indeed, she did not learn of his death until several years after the fact, when her mother casually mentioned that Miroslav had died in a hospital from a stomach ailment; and Martina was 23 before she was told the truth – that although Miroslav had, as Jana said, been hospitalized at the time of his death, he had actually committed suicide in the wake of a love affair which had ended badly.
Further childhood turmoil stemmed from the fact that, with her gangly body and close-cropped hair, Navratilova was often mistaken for a boy. Store clerks would direct her to the boys’ section; old women would mistake her for a Boy Scout and ask her assistance in crossing the street. “Somehow I had the sense of things being out of focus, out of place,” Navratilova later said, “the sense that I should be somewhere else.”
Not long after moving back to Prague, Jana joined the city’s tennis club and met Miroslav Navratil, another member with whom she was often teamed for friendly doubles matches. ‘Mirek,’ as everyone called him, earned his living as an accountant but was an enthusiastic athlete. He also shared Jana’s interest in the West and, like her, had taught himself English. The two married in July 1961 and presented Martina with a half-sister, named for her mother, two years later. By all accounts, the marriage was stable and the family lived in an upstairs room on the Revnice estate.
It was Mirek who first led his step-daughter onto the court that day in 1962 and noticed her enthusiasm for hitting the ball back to him with unusual force for a six-year-old; and it was Mirek who continued to hit the ball back to her for hours over the next three years, telling Martina all the while that she would be a champion player and to imagine playing at Wimbledon one day. As her tennis idol, Navratilova chose Australian Rod Laver, nicknamed ‘Rocket Rod’ for the speed of his court style, after seeing Laver play on television. “Women didn’t play like him, not then,” Navratilova said. “But if ever there was a player I wanted to copy, it was Laver.”
When she was nine years old, her step-father took her to Davis Cup player George Parma, then Czechoslovakia’s best tennis player and coach, who gave lessons at the country’s only indoor court at the western edge of Prague. Without Parma’s blessing and guidance, tennis hopefuls were unable to play during the bitterly cold winter months. But after Parma hit balls to her for half an hour, driving them especially hard out to the sideline to test Martina’s agility, he agreed to take her on as a student with one lesson a week. “He was the most patient coach a kid could have,” Navratilova said of Parma. “He would never shout or downgrade me in any way.”
Parma’s first step was to break Martina of the two-handed backhand Mirek had taught her, taking her right hand off the racquet and giving her a few more inches of reach. Telling her that “ordinary shots are what make the game,” Parma added subtlety to Martina’s game and encouraged her to play the baseline instead of constantly rushing the net.
Parma was so impressed with Navratilova’s ability that he soon added a second lesson to the weekly schedule and entered her in his junior program, even though she was three years younger than the minimum ageand had to obtain special medical permission to compete outside her age group. Martina still recalls with some amazement that Parma never charged for his time and, even more important, taught her to see tennis as a lifestyle rather than just a game. “Compete whenever you have the chance,” he told her. “Get to see the world. Sport is one way you’ll be able to travel.”
During this time, it was her generous paternal grandmother, Andela Subertova, who became Martina’s emotional mainstay. “I loved Grandma Subertova so much that she almost did not get into this book,” wrote Navratilova in her autobiography. “Every time I started to talk about her, I would break into tears, and feel weak and tired deep inside.” When Navratilova journeyed into Prague to train, Andela, who lived in a small apartment in the Klamovka section, would sometimes be waiting at the tram with a container of carrot salad, urging, “Eat it; it’s good for your eyes.” She was the voice of approval, the steadfast friend no matter what. On Friday nights, Martina would stay over with her.
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Martina Navratilova also mentions Agnes Semanska in the following interview, which she gave to an English newspaper in the summer of 2008.
From The Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2008
Martina Navratilova: my perfect weekend
Strawberries and a visit to a curry house make Martina Navratilova happy
Interview recorded by Sylvia Roger
Throughout the year I travel to different parts of the world, but invite me anywhere I can pick fruit – fresh from the tree – and I’ll be there in a flash. Mangoes, cherries, peaches, I just love them. Perhaps it’s because we didn’t have any in my grandfather’s home in Czechoslovakia where I grew up. I had to scale the neighbour’s wall to find fruit. Once she caught me in her walnut tree and shouted. I felt bad but, hey, they fall off the tree anyhow.
I still like to go home to my mother’s house there and enjoy a weekend out of doors. It’s the way I grew up: climbing trees, swimming in the river, practising tennis so that I could win tournaments like my grandmother, Agnes Semanska. I rise early with the sun and cycle with my father and friends. Anything can happen.
One weekend last year I spied a field bursting with porcini mushrooms. I was supposed to be having a work-out but I dropped my bike and leapt straight in; mushroom-hunting was a childhood hobby. I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when she saw them. We washed and cooked them straight away – what a feast. She passed away before Christmas and it’s a precious memory of her. Now I am the matriarch of the family: it’s a strange feeling, but I take my responsibilities seriously.
Whenever I can, I spend weekends at my home in Aspen, Colorado. I’m single now and I love to have kindred spirits and family, especially my sister and her two children, share it with me. I’m a Libra and I don’t like an empty house.It’s the ideal place for a country bumpkin. The main road is four miles away, so I can hear the birds and the bees and when I open the curtains in the morning, I see Mount Sopris twelve miles away. In winter, it’s covered in snow; at other times, it glows purple. It’s the ideal place to hike with my guests and my eight dogs. I crave physical activity.
Now is my favourite time to be in England. It’s like coming home because I spent three years in London. There are cherries on the trees, fresh gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries. The best place to eat strawberries is Wimbledon. It’s special. I touch the grass with my hand as soon as I arrive.
The Finals weekend is something I look forward to all year. I’m 51 and I’ve given up playing professionally but I’ll play in the old ladies’ doubles in the second week and I’ll also do some commentating. I’m still involved.
Tennis players have friends all over the world and we bump into each other wherever there are tournaments. I love that. After the game, we meet for dinner: I prefer to go to their home or mine, but sometimes we go to a restaurant. A favourite is The Bombay Brasserie in Kensington. I like Indian and Thai food here – it tastes better in England than in the States.
For the past 25 years I’ve taken a house in Wimbledon, but this time I’ll be renting a flat in Putney or Fulham because I’m also doing things in the city.
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[Info provided by Newmark]
