Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Billie Jean King (born November 22 1943, in Long
Beach, California) is a retired tennis player from
the United States. During her career, she won 12
Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam singles titles and
25 Grand Slam doubles titles. She is considered by
many to be one of the greatest tennis players and
female athletes in history. King was an outspoken
advocate against sexism in sports and in society
in general. The match for which she is best
remembered is the Battle of the Sexes in 1973, in
which she defeated the former Wimbledon
Championships|Wimbledon men's champion Bobby
Riggs.

King was born Billie Jean Moffit in 1943. She was
the daughter of a firefighter father and homemaker
mother. Her younger brother Randy Moffit went on
to become a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.
She learned to play tennis on the public courts of
Long Beach, California and first gained
international recognition in 1961 when, aged 17,
she won the women's doubles title at Wimbledon
(partnering Karen Hantze Susman). In 1965, she
married law-student Lawrence King.

In 1966, King won the first of six singles titles
at Wimbledon and reached the World No. 1 ranking
for the first time. She followed this up by
winning the singles titles at both Wimbledon and
the U.S. Open (tennis)|US Championships in 1967.
She developed a reputation as an aggressive,
hard-hitting net-rusher, with excellent speed and
a highly-competitive nature.

King was a significant force in the opening of
tennis to professionalism. Prior to the advent of
the Tennis Open Era|Open era in 1968, she had to
get by on US$100 a week as a playground instructor
and student at California State University, Los
Angeles|Los Angeles State College in between
playing at major tennis tournaments. In 1967, she
attacked the United States Tennis
Association|United States Lawn Tennis Association
in a series of press conferences, denouncing what
she called the association's practice of
"shamateurism", where top players were paid under
the table to guarantee their entry into
tournaments. King argued that this was corrupt and
kept the game highly elitist. When the Open era
began, King campaigned for equal prize money in
the men's and women's games. As the financial
backing of the women's game improved, King became
the first woman athlete to earn over US$100,000 in
prize money in 1971. But inequalities continued to
exist. In 1972, King won the US Open but received
US$15,000 less than the men's champion Ilie
Nastase. She stated that if the prize money was
not equal by the following year, she would not
play. In 1973, the US Open became the first major
tournament to offer equal prize money for men and
women. 

Despite all King's achievements at the world's
biggest tennis tournaments, it is a win over a 55
year-old man in 1973 for which she is best
remembered. Bobby Riggs had been a top men's
player in the 1930s and 40s. He had then gone on
to become a well-known tennis hustler who made a
living promoting himself playing in challenge
matches. In 1973 he took on the role of male
chauvinist and, claiming that the women's game was
so inferior to the men's game even a 55 year-old
like him could beat the current top female
players, he challenged an unprepared Margaret
Court to a match and beat her 6-2, 6-1. King, who
previously had rejected challenges from Riggs,
then decided accepted a lucrative financial offer
to play him at the Houston Astrodome in Texas on
September 20th 1973, in an event dubbed the Battle
of the Sexes. The match drew huge publicity. In
front of 30,492 spectators and a worldwide
television audience estimated at 50 million people
in 37 countries, King beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.
The match is considered to be a very singificant
event in developing greater recognition and
respect for women's tennis.

King was instrumental in establishing the women's
tennis tour in the 1970s, and worked tirelessly to
promote it. She became the first President of the
women's players union – the Women's Tennis
Association (WTA) – in 1973. In 1974, she
founded Womensports magazine, started the Women's
Sports Foundation. She also helped to found World
Team Tennis.

King's triumph at the French Open in 1972 made her
only the fifth woman in tennis history to win the
singles titles at all four Grand Slam events. She
also won all four of the mixed doubles titles, and
in women's doubles only the Australian Open eluded
her. She won a record 20 career titles at
Wimbledon – 6 singles, 10 women's doubles, and 4
mixed doubles (this record has since been equalled
by Martina Navratilova). She is also the only
woman to have won the US Open singles title on all
four surfaces on which it has been played (grass,
clay, indoor, and hard). In 1973, King became the
oldest player to win a professional title when she
won at Birmingham. She retired from competitive
play later that year after reaching the
semi-finals in her last appearance at Wimbledon.
During her career, King won 67 professional and 37
amateur singles titles and helped the US win the
Fed Cup 7 times. Her career prize money totalled
US$1,966,487.

King was inducted into the International Tennis
Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1990, Life
(magazine)|Life magazine named her one of the '100
Most Important Americans of the 20th Century'.

In 1971, King began an affair with her secretary
Marilyn Barnett. When this came to light in a
lawsuit ten years later, King acknowledged the
affair and thus became the first American athlete
to openly admit to having a homosexual
relationship. She received an award from Gay and
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation|GLAAD - an
organisation devoted to reducing discrimination
against gays, lesbians and bisexuals - in 2001 for
"furthering the visibility and inclusion of the
community in her work". The award noted her
involvement in production and the free
distribution of educational films, as well as
serving on the boards of several AIDS charities. 

King currently resides in New York and Seattle. In
the mid-1980s, she divorced Lawrence King.

The Elton John song "Philadelphia Freedom" is a
tribute to King.


==Major singles titles==

* Wimbledon: 6 titles – 1966, 67, 68, 72, 73, 75
* US Open: 4 titles – 1967, 71, 72, 74 
* Australian Open: 1 title – 1968 
* French Open: 1 title – 1972


==External links==

* wta|id=110100|name=Billie Jean King
*
http://www.tennisfame.com/enshrinees/billiejean_ki
ng.html International Tennis Hall of Fame profile
*
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/wimbledon_h
istory/3742111.stm BBC profile
*
http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016060
.html ESPN.com article
* http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0258446/ When Billie
Beat Bobby (IMDb info on the 2001 TV drama/comedy
about The Battle of the Sexes)