The Tennis Battle of the Sexes.

The Tennis Battle of the Sexes. In a demonstration match in 1973, women's tennis champion Billie Jean King beat former men's tennis professional Bobby Riggs in straight sets. Despite the circus-like atmosphere of the event and the poorly matched skill and conditioning of the two competitors, the game remains a landmark event in the history of women's athletics and of the women's rights movement. . "The Battle of the Sexes" As part of the rise of the women's rights movement during the early 1970s, female athletes sought greater recognition, money, and opportunities. According to a tennis-pro-turned-hustler named Bobby Riggs, this was all wrong. "Women's tennis?" Riggs said. "I think it stinks.... Their best player couldn't even beat an old man like me." Billie Jean King, a leading tennis player who had been at the forefront of the women's athletic movement, took Riggs up on his offer. She challenged him to a $10,000 winner-take-all affair--"The Battle of the Sexes" tennis match. King played down the issue of equality in favor of the game itself. "It's not women's lib," she said, "it's women's lob." The event, held on September 20, 1973, attracted enormous attention, and it had all the trappings of absurd theater. King was brought to the court in a carriage hoisted by sculpted male athletes, while Riggs rode a rickshaw pulled by female models dubbed "Bobby's Bosom Buddies." Yet beneath the hoopla, a real issue--taking women seriously as athletes--was at stake. King understood this, and before the match she was so nervous she vomited. But once on the court she displayed the power and skill that made her so successful. She blasted Riggs in three sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, running him silly and registering 70 shots that he never even hit. Billie Jean had first confronted inequalities in tennis while competing against wealthier players from the country club circuit. Ostracized because she couldn't always afford fancy dresses and because she played on public courts, she decided early on that she wanted to change the face of the sport. King won her first Wimbledon title in 1966; the prize was a meager gift certificate for tennis wear. Two years later she joined with other top professionals, men and women, to demand prize money for tournament play. In 1970, angered by the allocation of money for women's players, she organized other women players to look for a way to begin their own tournaments. Soon there was a separate tour for women professionals, the Virginia Slims circuit, which became widely successful. "It was King who turned women's tennis from a ladies' auxiliary that attracted attention only when somebody's panties showed into a megabuck profession for serious, dedicated athletes," Working Woman magazine wrote. The article quoted tennis professional Rosie Casals: "Billie Jean was the impetus behind women sticking together. She directed the boycotting and fighting for equal rights.... She was a leader, which you always need to get anything done." In the early 1970s King was arguably the top female player, becoming in 1971 the first woman athlete to earn $100,000 in a year. But oddly enough it was Bobby Riggs who turned Billie Jean King into a household name. Riggs was a curious sort. The son of a preacher, he was virtually unknown when he came to Wimbledon in 1939 and bet heavily on himself at 200 to 1 odds that he would win the singles, doubles, and mixed doubles championships. He did it. Later that year he won the United States singles championship. Military service cut into his tennis career, and later in life he became a tennis hustler, betting on private matches that he played. He offered handicaps to less accomplished players, and the matches often resembled stunts more than tennis games; he played while holding an umbrella, while tethered to two Great Danes, while handcuffed, or wearing boots and a raincoat. With the rise in women's tennis Riggs saw the chance for a huge hustle and began making blunt statements about the weakness of the women's game. He challenged any of the top five players on the women's circuit to a match. Margaret Smith Court responded, and the two met on Mother's Day, May 12, 1973. Riggs, a slight, almost frail-looking man, 5-foot-5, with heavy black glasses, looked more like Woody Allen than a chiseled tennis professional, but he possessed an assortment of tricky shots. He used them to keep Court off balance and defeated her, 6-2, 6-1. Riggs was now in the spotlight, and King saw her chance--her duty--to strike a blow for women's tennis and women's athletics. She challenged Riggs to a $10,000 match. "Margaret opened the door and I intend to close it," said King, age 29. Riggs became the champion of "male chauvinist pigs" everywhere. King was seen as the savior of women. As such the King-Riggs match was heatedly discussed all over the country. By the day of the match, the purse had reached $100,000. Although the winner would receive all of that, each player was guaranteed $75,000 from the advertising and promotion of the event. The New York Times estimated that Riggs alone received $300,000 in promotion fees and endorsements. The contest took place in the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, in front of a crowd of 30,492, the most spectators ever to see a tennis match. The worldwide television broadcast was seen by tens of millions more. The atmosphere was carnival-like. After the two competitors came out in their respective carts, Riggs presented King with a large candy sucker; she gave him a baby brown pig named Lorimore Hustle. (Lorimore was Riggs's middle name.) A band played in the background; banners unfurled around the stadium. When the match began, though, King was characteristically intense. Serving in the first game, she won. Riggs took the next game on his serve, and captured three straight points in the third game. But King became more aggressive, smashing shots that Riggs simply couldn't reach. She won the first set 6-4. Of the 34 points she scored in the set, Riggs never touched 26 of them. The set ended when Riggs, who said he never choked, double-faulted on set point with the game count at 4-5. King won the second set, 6-3. By the third set Riggs was exhausted and suffering hand cramps. King won easily, 6-3. She had proven to be the aggressor, charging the net and delivering hard serves and volleys. "She beat Riggs to the ball, dominated the net and ran him around the baseline to the point of near exhaustion," Neil Amdur wrote in the next day's New York Times." More important, perhaps for women everywhere, she convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive in pressure-filled situations and that men are as susceptible to nerves as women." "The tennis was awful," wrote Sally Jenkins in a 1994 Sports Illustrated article that ranked King number five on the list of the most important sports figures of the previous 40 years. "But King's victory meant something. With it, insidious notions about the desire and ability of women to compete in the big time fell away." King realized the social and political significance of her achievement. "Before that," she said, "women were chokers and spastics who couldn't take pressure. Except, of course, in childbirth." Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.