HOUSTON- What started out as a challenge from a former male tennis star who made negative remarks about women and the game of women’s tennis, eventually led to one of the most famous sporting events of all time.
The “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King took place fifty years ago today, September 20, 1973.
Although the match seemed to be a circus to many at the time, it is now looked back upon as a milestone in the fight for women to gain equality in all facets of not only sports, but in society at large.
Riggs, in his prime, was a successful tennis player. But at the time of the match in 1973, the fifty-five-year-old Riggs was well beyond his prime. King, who was only 29 at the time, was in the midst of a successful women’s tennis career.
Riggs made a series of challenges that year, making derogatory remarks about women’s tennis along the way. In fact, the match in September of 1973 was not the first such match. Then women’s tennis star, Margaret Court, accepted Riggs’s challenge first, but was soundly defeated by Riggs in May of 1973 in just two quick sets. The victory over Court accelerated Riggs’s remarks about women and women’s tennis.
So, when King accepted the challenge, it was promoted into a big spectacle. The match was played before more than 30,000 people in the Houston Astrodome and was televised in prime time by ABC Sports. Rosie Casals, another women’s tennis star at the time, was chosen as one of the color commentators on the ABC telecast because the network knew she would not hold back on her negative comments toward Riggs. And that is exactly what Casals did on the telecast, making the event even more centered around the social implications of the event. Casals, along with Howard Cosell broadcasted the match on national television. The sport of tennis, perhaps being watched that night by people who were not necessarily tennis fans, took a back seat to the issue of women’s equality.
King soundly defeated Riggs that night in a best-of-five set match. It took King just three sets to defeat Riggs; she did so by the set scores of 6-4, 6-3, and 6-3. After the match, the two met at center court and walked off together. Riggs has been quoted as to telling King at the time of his defeat, “I underestimated you.”
Several years later, another such “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match would take place in 1992 between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova. But it did not seem to have the significance socially as the 1973 Riggs / King match.
All of this happened, 50 years ago today. And for some, so many of the main issues that were heatedly debated in 1973, remain today in 2023.
