Battle of the Sexes (tennis)

Battle of the Sexes I

Margaret Court vs. Bobby Riggs
Set 1 2 Margaret Court 2 1 Bobby Riggs 6 6
Date	May 13, 1973
Location	Ramona, California

Battle of the Sexes II

Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs
Set 1 2 3 Billie Jean King 6 6 6 Bobby Riggs 4 3 3
Date	September 20, 1973
Location	Houston, Texas

Battle of the Sexes III

Martina Navratilova vs. Jimmy Connors
Set 1 2 Martina Navratilova 5 2 Jimmy Connors 7 6
Date	September, 1992
Location	Las Vegas, Nevada

The Battle of the Sexes is a title given to three notable tennis matches between a male and a female player. The first match was between Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court, over the best of three sets. The second was a nationally televised match between Riggs and Billie Jean King, over the best of five sets. The Riggs v King match was officially dubbed The Battle of the Sexes. The final match was between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova, over the best of three sets and hybrid rules favouring the female player, which was dubbed The Battle of Champions.

Riggs v Court

A master promoter of himself and of tennis, Riggs saw an opportunity in 1973 to make money and to elevate the popularity of a sport he loved. Although 55 years old at the time, he came out of retirement to challenge one of the world's greatest female players to a match, claiming that the female game was inferior and that a top female player could not beat him even at the age of 55. Riggs first challenged King but when she declined, Court stepped in. At the time Court was 30 years old and the top female player in the world. In their May 13, 1973, Mother's Day match in Ramona, California, Riggs used his drop shots and lobs to keep Court off balance. His 6–2, 6–1 victory landed Riggs on the cover of both Sports Illustrated and Time magazine.

Riggs v 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 that the promoters dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes". The match was held in Houston, Texas on September 20, 1973. Bobby Riggs did an interview for 60 Minutes in the buildup to the event.

Shortly before the match, King entered the Astrodome in Cleopatra style, carried aloft in a chair held by four bare-chested muscle men dressed in the style of ancient slaves. Riggs followed in a rickshaw drawn by a bevy of scantily-clad models. Riggs presented King with a giant lollipop and she gave him a piglet named Larimore Hustle. King had learned from Court's humiliation and was ready for Riggs' game. Rather than playing her own usual aggressive game, she mostly stayed at the baseline, easily handling Riggs's lobs and soft shots, making Riggs cover the entire court as she ran him from side to side, and beating him at his own defensive game. After quickly falling behind from the baseline, where he had intended to play, Riggs was forced to change to a serve-and-volley game. Even from the net, the result was the same: King defeated him, 6–4, 6–3, 6–3.

A few critics were less than impressed by King's victory. King 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 womens' 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 challenged King to another match. King refused.^{[citation needed]} Despite some of the comments downplaying the loss by Riggs (or victory of King), following the match Riggs was "devastated" and isolated himself in his hotel room for four hours with his handlers checking on him periodically. Given Riggs's highly competitive nature, he did not enjoy losing to a woman before an audience of an estimated 90 million worldwide (50 million in the US). The attendance in the Houston Astrodome was 30,472 and still the largest audience ever to see a tennis match in the US.

Legacy

There was also widespread speculation that Riggs had purposely lost, in order to win large sums of money that he had bet against himself.^{[citation needed]} As Kramer writes, however, "Billie Jean beat him fair and square. A lot of men — especially around our age — were so stunned when he lost that they figured he must have tanked. Budge is convinced of that. But what motive would Riggs have for that? Bobby Riggs, the biggest ham in the world, gets his greatest audience — and purposefully looks bad? There's no way. If he had beaten Billie Jean, he could have kept the act going indefinitely. Next they would have had him play Chrissy on clay." The match against King was for $100,000 "winner take all". If Riggs had won, the next match against Evert would have a purse of $1,000,000 "winner take all." Given Riggs's ego and the national attention, it is highly doubtful that he would have intentionally lost to King, especially in straight sets. Selena Roberts claims in her book documenting the match, A Necessary Spectacle, that Riggs later undertook a public lie detector test to prove he did not throw the match.

In recent years, a persistent urban legend has arisen, particularly on the Internet, that the rules were modified for the match so that Riggs had only one serve for King's two, and that King was allowed to hit into the doubles court area. This is false: the match was played under the normal rules of tennis. The modified rules were applied to the Connors v Navratilova match in 1992, which may have contributed to the confusion.

Nearly thirty years later, a 2001 ABC television docudrama entitled When Billie Beat Bobby recounted the match and the lead-up to it.

Battle of the Sexes: The Challenge! (doubles)

On 23 August 1985, at age 67, Riggs returned to the tennis spotlight when he partnered with Vitas Gerulaitis, at the time a top-twenty player, to launch another challenge to female players. He challenged Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver to a doubles match. Navratilova said that she accepted because she believed she and Pam had no weaknesses when playing doubles, and that they were going to 'do a Billie' and win, especially given Riggs' age. The match took place at The Atlantic City Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Riggs' health had deteriorated somewhat from his last outing as he was now deaf and wore glasses. Moreover, because Riggs was a finesse player and not a power player, the women expected that defeating him would be easier than a retired power player. Riggs' return was short lived when the women won 6–3, 6–2, 6–4. Mike Penner (of The Los Angeles Times) wrote: "The great misconception about "The Challenge!" was that it might actually serve as a legitimate proving ground for the sexes." The sports writer went on to point out that there were a couple things keeping this match from being seriously looked at as a legitimate challenge. "First, it was a doubles match, not a one-on-one competition. The strategy is different in doubles, weaknesses can be more easily masked and stamina is not nearly so critical a factor." The other point to be made: "Riggs amounted to a 67-year-old ball-and-chain shackled to the ankle of Gerulaitis. Riggs couldn't serve, couldn't return serves, couldn't hit overheads with any amount of force. Older than the combined ages of Navratilova and Shriver, Riggs was painfully out of place in this match. Even John McEnroe, on his finest day, would be an underdog against Navratilova and Shriver if Riggs were his partner."

Navratilova v Connors

A third "Battle of the Sexes" match, entitled Battle of Champions, was played at Caesars Palace in Paradise, Nevada, in September 1992 between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova. Navratilova had previously turned down invites to take on John McEnroe and Ilie Năstase, as she considered them undignified. Connors said before the match that this was 'war.' Navratilova, on the other hand, said this was a battle of egos. For this match, Connors was allowed only one serve per point, and Navratilova was allowed to hit into half the doubles court. Connors won 7–5, 6–2. The match was on PPV, and the promoters were hoping to get the match as a battle of the world's number ones, Connors and Monica Seles. Seles was 19 at the time, whilst Connors and Navratilova were 40 and 35, respectively. Navratilova made 8 double faults and 36 unforced errors. Connors, too, was nervous and there was a rumor that he had bet on himself to win at 4:1 and had placed a large amount of cash on it.

Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters

A fourth event dubbed "Battle of the sexes" took place during the 1998 Australian Open between the 203rd ranked male player Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters. The match took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park. First Braasch - who was 30 at the time - took on Venus Williams and beat her 6–2. He also played Serena Williams and won 6–1 after the Williams sisters, who were 17 and 16 at the time, said they could beat any man ranked 200 or worse. Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance" as he claimed he had played like someone ranked 600 in order to keep the game "fun."

Other

In December 2003, Yannick Noah and Justine Henin played a friendly at the Forest National in Brussels. Noah donned a dress for much of the match. He played predominantly trick shots and slices, but still ended up winning 4–6, 6–4, 7–6.