The battle of the sexes

Have you heard of Bobby Riggs? Riggs was a world champion tennis player and had won a host of titles. In 1973, he was 55, at the end of his career, but he was still a very good player. Not that he was modest about it. She took every opportunity she could to proclaim that women could never be the players that men were, that they were simply too weak, and that they were only women. Riggs played and beat a champion tennis player named Margaret Court on Mother’s Day 1973. Then he started bragging again. She challenged the champion the world knew as Billie Jean King to a match, saying “I want Billie Jean King, I want the leader of women’s freedoms.” Riggs boasted loudly that even the much younger Billie Jean King, at twenty-nine, was no match for him.

Billie Jean King (when she finished her career) had a long list of accomplishments to her name. For example, she was the first female athlete in any sport to earn more than $ 100,000 in a single season ($ 117,000, 1971), the only woman to win the US singles title. On four surfaces (grass, clay, carpet , hard courts), One of six first-time inducers on the USTA National Tennis Center’s Court of Fame (2003). First woman to have a major sports venue named in her honor (USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center – 2006).

At the time, the difference in prize money between men’s and women’s tennis was a sore point in the sport. In comparison, they were grossly underpaid. She accepted the challenge of proving that women could beat men on their own turf. The game was held at the Houston Astrodome on September 20, 1973. It drew the largest live audience for a tennis match and garnered prime-time television coverage. 30,472 spectators filled the stadium and an estimated 50 million spectators saw it on television. Riggs incited the crowd by entering the stadium in a carriage drawn by women. Billie Jean King entered a red velvet gurney carried by University of Houston football players in short robes.

But when they hit the courts, the players were all on business. Riggs went out of his way to refine the ball, throwing balloons, tosses, and spins. In one of the most talked about events in sports history, Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in three straight sets of tennis by wearing him out with long rallies. Scores were 6-4, 6-3, and 6-3. After the game, he kindly said, “She was too good, too fast. She returned all my passing shots and made great plays with them.” Referring to the famous match, King later said: “It helped many people to realize that everyone can have skills, whether male or female … as well as helping men and women understand each other.”