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Battle of the Sexes (tennis)

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Battle of the Sexes I
Margaret Court vs. Bobby Riggs
Set 1 2
Margaret Court 2 1
Bobby Riggs 6 6
DateMay 13, 1973
LocationRamona, 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
DateSeptember 20, 1973
LocationHouston, Texas
Battle of the Sexes III
Martina Navratilova vs. Jimmy Connors
Set 1 2
Martina Navratilova 5 2
Jimmy Connors 7 6
DateSeptember, 1992
LocationLas 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 is reputed to have played the male chauvinist card, coming 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.[1] 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[2] landed Riggs on the cover of both Sports Illustrated and Time magazine.[3][4]

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 build up to the event.[5]

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 garb of ancient slaves.[6] Riggs followed in a rickshaw drawn by a bevy of scantily-clad models.[6] Riggs presented King with a giant lollypop and she gave him a piglet named Larimore Hustle. When the match began, King had learned from Court's humiliation and was ready for Riggs's game. Rather than playing her own usual aggressive game, she mostly hugged 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.[7] 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 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."[8] 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]

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 purposely 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." 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.[9]

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. These 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.

  • In season 4 episode 10 (original air date: 11/16/1973), entitled "The Pig Who Came to Dinner", of the comedy television series The Odd Couple, Bobby Riggs is the main guest star who bets with character Oscar Madison and wins. In an effort to reclaim their belongings, Oscar and his roommate, Felix Unger, challenge Bobby to a ping-pong match, two against one, while wearing Billie Jean King masks to intimidate him. Billie Jean King makes an appearance near the end of the show, and beats Bobby.[10]
  • A 2008 television commercial in the United States for GEICO alludes to the Battle of the Sexes by constructing another Battle of the Sexes tennis match between Billie Jean King and one of their GEICO Cavemen characters. The Billie Jean versus caveman match is scored 6-0, 6-0, 5-0 when the protagonist realizes that the event is sponsored by GEICO and leaves the court.

Battle of the Sexes-The doubles

In 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. 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.[11] Riggs' return was short lived when the women won 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.[12]

A third "Battle of the Sexes" match, entitled Battle of Champions, was played at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, 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.[13] Connors said before the match that this was 'war.' Navratilova, on the other hand, said this was a battle of egos.[14] For this match, Connors was allowed only one serve per point, and Navratilova was allowed to hit into half the doubles court.[15] Connors won 7–5, 6–2.[16] 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 as apparently he had bet on himself to win at 4:1 and had placed a large amount of cash on it.[17]

Other Battles of the Sexes

In 1998, 203rd ranked male player Karsten Braasch 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."[18] Yannick Noah and Justine Henin also went toe to toe in a match. The Frenchman won 4-6, 6-4, 7-6.[19]

References

  1. ^ "How Bobby Runs and Talks, Talks, Talks". Time. 1973-09-10. Retrieved 2010-06-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ CNN http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/edb/reader.html?magID=SI&issueDate=19730521&mode=reader_vault. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ "Most Popular". CNN.
  4. ^ Time http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19730910,00.html. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ^ "Bobby Riggs on 60 Minutes". YouTube. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
  6. ^ a b Roberts, Selena (2008-09-20). "A ray of progress for women as Battle of the Sexes turns 35". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 2010-06-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  7. ^ "Sport: How King Rained on Riggs' Parade". Time. 1973-10-01. Retrieved 2010-06-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ Buzinski, Jim. "King a True Pioneer, HBO Hits an Ace with Tennis Documentary". OutSports.com. Retrieved 2010-06-24.
  9. ^ A Necessary Spectacle. Roberts, Selena. Crown Books, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-1400051465
  10. ^ "The Odd Couple: The Pig Who Came to Dinner". TV.com. Retrieved 2010-06-24.
  11. ^ "Tennis / Mike Penner". The Los Angeles Times. 1985-03-10.
  12. ^ "MySpace". Forum.myspace.com. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
  13. ^ name= LAtimes
  14. ^ Meyers, Kate (1992-09-25). "Serve them up in Sin City". EW.com. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2010-08-02.
  15. ^ "SPORTS PEOPLE: TENNIS; Connors-Navratilova for $500,000". The New York Times. 1992-07-29.
  16. ^ JimAsian1. "1992 Tennis Jimmy Connors Martina Navratilova B". YouTube. Retrieved 2011-03-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ "Video". CNN. 1992-10-05.
  18. ^ "Welcome to Dispatch Online". Dispatch.co.za. 2010-11-12. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
  19. ^ "Battle of the Sexes -full version". YouTube. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
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