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Dennis Donovan

(18,770 posts)
Fri Sep 20, 2019, 06:32 AM Sep 2019

46 Years Ago Today; "The Battle of the Sexes" on the tennis court

https://tinyurl.com/gu89euq (Wikipedia)


Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs

In tennis, "Battle of the Sexes" describes various exhibition matches played between a man and a woman, or a doubles match between two men and two women in one case. The term is most famously used for a nationally televised match in 1973 held at the Houston Astrodome between 55 year-old Bobby Riggs and 29 year-old Billie Jean King, which King won in three sets. The match was viewed by an estimated 90 million people around the world. King's win is considered a milestone in public acceptance of women's tennis.

Two other matches commonly referred to as a "battle of the sexes" include one held four months earlier in 1973 between Riggs and Margaret Court over the best of three sets, and one in 1992 between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova over the best of three sets, with hybrid rules favoring the female player dubbed "The Battle of Champions".

At least eight other exhibition matches have been played between notable male and female tennis players starting in 1888, though only some of them were referred to at the time as a "battle of the sexes".

<snip>

1973: Riggs vs. King
Suddenly in the national limelight following his win over Court, Riggs taunted all female tennis players, prompting King to accept a lucrative financial offer to play Riggs in a nationally televised match in prime time on ABC that the promoters dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes". The match, which had a winner-take-all prize of $100,000 ($564,000 today), was held in Texas at the Houston Astrodome on Thursday, September 20, 1973.

Then 29-year-old King had earned her fifth year-end ranking as World No. 1 female player the previous year, and would finish second to Court in 1973.


Paraphernalia from the Billie Jean King vs Bobby Riggs match


The dress worn by King during the match

King entered the court in the style of Cleopatra, on a feather-adorned litter carried by four bare-chested muscle men dressed in the style of ancient slaves. Riggs followed in a rickshaw drawn by a bevy of models. Riggs presented King with a giant Sugar Daddy lollipop, and she responded by giving him a squealing piglet, symbolic of male chauvinism. Riggs was given $50,000 ($282,000 today) to wear a yellow Sugar Daddy jacket during the match, which he took off after three games. Riggs also placed many bets on and invested a lot of money in the match.

King, who also competed in the Virginia Slims of Houston during the same week, won in straight sets, 6–4, 6–3, 6–3. In the first set, she fell behind 3–2 when Riggs broke her serve. In a 2015 interview, she said that most people do not remember that she was initially behind in the first set, and it looked bad for her in the early going. At this point, King realized that she "had to win" given the importance of the match, and broke right back and again in the tenth game to close out the set. She had learned from Court's loss and was ready for Riggs's game. Rather than playing her own usual aggressive game, King mostly stayed at the baseline, easily handling Riggs's lobs and soft shots, making him cover the entire court as she ran him from side to side and beat him at his own defensive style of play. After quickly failing from the baseline, where he had intended to play, Riggs dropped his comedic effect and showed a more serious demeanor, as he was forced to change to a serve-and-volley game.

A few critics were less than impressed by King's victory; she was 26 years younger, and some experts claimed that it was more an age versus youth game. According to Jack Kramer, "I don't think Billie Jean played all that well. She hit a lot of short balls which Bobby could have taken advantage of had he been in shape. I would never take anything away from Billie Jean—because she was smart enough to prepare herself properly—but it might have been different if Riggs hadn't kept running around. It was more than one woman who took care of Bobby Riggs in Houston." Before the match, however, King had forced the American television network ABC to drop Kramer as a commentator. King said, "He doesn't believe in women's tennis. Why should he be part of this match? He doesn't believe in half of the match. I'm not playing. Either he goes—or I go."

After the match, Pancho Segura declared that Riggs was only the third best senior player, behind himself and Gardnar Mulloy, and he challenged King to another match. King refused.

The match had an audience of an estimated 50 million in the U.S. and 90 million worldwide. The attendance in the Houston Astrodome was 30,472; as of 2012, it remains the largest audience to see a tennis match in the United States.

Allegations of match-throwing
There was widespread speculation that Riggs had deliberately lost the match, based on his unusually poor play and large number of unforced errors, in order to win large sums of money that he had bet against himself as a way to pay off his gambling debts.[30] ESPN's Outside the Lines featured a man who had been silent for 40 years on August 25, 2013. The man said that he heard several members of the mafia talking about Riggs throwing the match in exchange for cancelling his gambling debt to the mob.[30] On the other hand, the article says that Riggs' close friend and estate executor Lornie Kuhle vehemently denied that he was ever in debt to the mob or received a payoff from them. The article also quotes Riggs' son, who claims that his father felt that he had made a terrible mistake and was depressed for six months following the match. Riggs wanted a rematch but not King. He considered suing her, as a rematch had been part of the contract.

Effects on women's tennis


Portrait of Billie Jean King and the final match score over Bobby Riggs

King viewed the match as more than a publicity stunt, feeling that beating Riggs was important both for women's tennis and for the women's liberation movement as a whole. She said later, "I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match. It would ruin the women's tour and affect all women's self-esteem." She believed that she had a destiny to work for gender equality in sports.

Billie Jean was part of the Original 9, which formed the Virginia Slims Series, created because the women wanted to end inequality of pay between male and female victors. These nine women created their own tournaments and played wherever they could. Eventually this turned into the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).

In popular culture
In 2001, ABC aired a television film about the match between King and Riggs titled When Billie Beat Bobby, starring Holly Hunter and Ron Silver as King and Riggs respectively.

In 2013, New Black Films released the documentary movie Battle of the Sexes in cinemas, with television broadcast following soon after. It was directed by James Erskine and Zara Hayes. The film was released on DVD in 2014.

The 2017 film Battle of the Sexes, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is about the King/Riggs match, and stars Emma Stone and Steve Carell as King and Riggs, respectively.

</snip>


I was a wee one in 1973, but this stands out in my memory as a seminal cultural event. Afterwards, Riggs showed up on an episode of The Odd Couple as himself, as the leader of a fictional men's organization called "Riggs' Pigs".
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46 Years Ago Today; "The Battle of the Sexes" on the tennis court (Original Post) Dennis Donovan Sep 2019 OP
Grand theater! Fyrefox Sep 2019 #1
This message was self-deleted by its author Chin music Sep 2019 #2

Fyrefox

(300 posts)
1. Grand theater!
Fri Sep 20, 2019, 07:37 AM
Sep 2019

This was truly a cultural event, a self-parody of excess. I'm reminded also of the late controversial comedian Andy Kauffman's routines as the "Trans-Gender Wrestling Champion."

Response to Dennis Donovan (Original post)

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