Martina Navratilova weds longtime girlfriend Julia Lemigova

NEW YORK, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Martina Navratilova and longtime girlfriend Julia Lemigova are married.

The 58-year-old tennis great and 42-year-old former model wed at the Peninsula hotel in New York on Monday. The couple have been together for over six years, and got engaged when Navratilova proposed to Lemigova at the U.S. Open in September.

"It's just really odd," Navratilova related to the BBC. "I'm 58 years old and I got married for the first time. It's about time, right? ... Growing up as a gay woman you just don't think about that, but then about 10 years ago I thought, 'In about 10 years, gay marriage will be legal,' and here we are."

Navratilova came out as bisexual in a New York Daily News interview in 1981. She is a renowned singles and doubles tennis player who won 18 Grand Slam singles and 31 major women's doubles titles in her career.

Lemigova was previously linked to late French banker Édouard Stern in the 1990s. She and Stern had one son who died in infancy, and the Miss USSR 1990 winner has two living daughters, Victoria and Emma. She has not revealed the identity of the girls' father.