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- noticed that U.S. citizens
- had many more freedoms
- than her own people. She
- decided she would rather
- live in the United States.
- However, Czech citizens could not just leave
- their country and move elsewhere. Martina
- had to defect, or run away, from Czecho-
- slovakia, leaving her friends and family
- behind. She defected in 1975, and in 1981
- she became a U.S. citizen.
-
- It was hard for a teenager to be on her own in
- a strange country. Martina gained a lot of
- weight. She lost some big matches, and
- her confidence fell. Even though she won
- Wimbledon in 1978 and 1979, some
- tennis watchers felt that Martina wasn't
- living up to her potential. When Martina
-