Name: Martina Navratilova

Age: 52

Occupation: Former tennis champion

Celebrity supporters: Mark Foster

Phobias: Heights, caves and spiders

Special skills: Hand/eye coordination and telling good jokes

“Of course I’m competitive – nobody goes on the court saying I want to lose.”

Former tennis champion Martina Navratilova is geared up for her trip to the jungle and says she won’t stand for it if she hears other campmates whining.

Martina says she is a very competitive person and will tell people exactly what she thinks of them and will get annoyed if they don’t listen.

She says: “Of course I’m competitive – nobody goes on the court saying I want to lose.

“Nobody that goes on this show says, ‘Oh, I want to be out of there after the first week and just watch it you know from the hotel the rest of the time’. We all want to stay on.

“It’s when you’re not trying and you have a lousy attitude or you’re a whiner. It’s like, ‘Come on, let’s go’. So that would annoy me. But if people are trying I would always try to help them out and definitely you know bring them up so that everybody wins.

“People annoy me by not listening when they ask you a question and they don’t listen to the answer and then they have to ask you again.

“I think we meet so many new people on the tour, in my life, lifestyle that I’m kind of used to being in a new environment. But of course this will be very close. I mean you will be in close quarters with nine strangers.

“Even if I do recognise some of them, you still don’t know who they are as people. They’ll probably know me but they don’t know really what I’m about either. So it’s going to be interesting.

“I think people that get on my nerves are ignorant people you know. But I don’t think we’ll have that because we’ll all be celebrities of one sort or another. Ignorance is what I don’t deal with very well and bad manners.

“But you know because of who I am I can’t really tell somebody, ‘Hey you’re really an idiot you know’. You still try to be nice and educate people. ‘No, you really should not be interrupting me while I’m eating my meal. I will be happy to give my autograph after the meal’ and they’ll say, ‘Well, we’re leaving now’. Say, ‘Well, I’m still eating so you’re going to have to wait for that autograph’.

“But that’s about the extent of it. So if somebody’s a real ass out there, just try to deal with it. Hopefully that won’t be the case.”

Having said this, Martina says that she is joining I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here for a challenge and does hope to make friends and be a team player.

She says: “I love new experiences and any time I have an opportunity to do something I’ve never done before I do it, other than bungee jumping. So I like new challenges, I like new problems. I love Sudoku.

“I am a person with a positive outlook on things for the most part and try to have a good time and have people around me have a good time. I always look at the glass if half full not half empty while being realistic but always optimistic.

“I’m a Libra so I’m always sort of weighing out the intellectual and the emotional and the good and the bad and I do try to sort of see all sides of the issue and not just look at things from my point of view.

“And I try to make people laugh and because, as a tennis player, as an athlete, I am a role model for a lot of kids. I always have in the back of my mind when I want to misbehave I’d better not do that in case it gets out. So you know you have that filter.

“I think my friends would say that I am very playful but reasonable.

“I tend to be more of a leader than a follower but I am a team player so what ever is necessary to do at that moment that is what I will do. I am willing to do anything it takes to get things done so I will pick up the rubbish if the rubbish needs to be picked up or I can cook the meal if we have food to cook or just stay out of the way if everybody else is doing it, I couldn’t care less really.

“I think as a tennis player you’re a natural leader because you have to make a decision. Every single time you hit the ball you have to decide what to do with it. So you’re making decisions like that, thousands of them every day. And of course in terms of career and everything else, who you employ, who is your coach, what tournaments to play, all of that.

“There’s a lot of decision making involved, you’re responsible for yourself. It’s not like we’re a soccer player or a football player on a team and all they have to do is show up, you know the coach tells them what to do, when to do it. We make our own decisions.”

Martina also confesses that she has never watched I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! and admits that she doesn’t really know what she is letting herself in for.

She says: “I’m flying very blind here. I have no idea what to expect other than having to rough it in the bush in Australia with nine strangers. So I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never seen the show and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. If I had seen it, if I would go, ‘Yeah, yeah, I really want to do that’ or if I’m like, ‘No way’. So I’m sort of going in on trusting in my ability to adjust, as Billy Jean King says, ‘Champions adjust’. So we’ll see if I can adjust.

“I am afraid of heights and being in a cave with no way out. I don’t know how many people don’t like spiders and snakes but I’m ok about it as I have spent a lot of time out in the bush so I should be ok about that.

“I’ve got a pilot’s licence and I had to fly a plane. I was petrified of heights. I’m petrified of drowning but I’ll learn how to scuba dive, I like to sort of push myself.

“I think the biggest challenge for me is food, but a few weeks in the jungle, I’m ready for that. I’m ready to get rid of my BlackBerry, get rid of my watch and just see what happens.

“I am scared of, or I’ll be worried about, poisonous creatures, whether it’s snakes or spiders. Some are very, very nasty. So that would be my biggest worry. Apparently there are like five spiders within nine feet of you at all times wherever you are.

“So I am not too worried about it but the stuff that crawls. Not great. But I’m all right. Snakes, I’ve touched a snake. I was okay about that. We’ll see. Not great. Not horrible.”

The things Martina will miss most whilst in the jungle are her partner and reading the New York Times.

She says: “I will miss reading the New York Times and just being able to read really, I think that is going to be difficult.

“I’m definitely ready to chuck my watch, chuck my BlackBerry and I will miss the newspapers but all this other stuff, I’m ready not to have it in my life.

“Of course contact with my friends and family, my girlfriend, not necessarily in that order. My I-pod, watching my shows or listening to music. Reading, doing Sudoku.

“Normal life that I do no matter where I am, no matter where I travel I can still do. Now that’ll be all gone so that, that’s going to be a switch.”