The former tennis champion and women’s rights advocate is still going strong at 79 years old. The LILA Gazette tells her story.

By Megan Ly – 9th grade.

You might have seen her on TV with her thick glasses and dark colored hair. Billie Jean King, a former world No. 1 tennis player who won 39 grand slam titles, has just celebrated the 50th year anniversary for equal pay in professional sports. She is the one behind this milestone and she is still advocating for women’s rights today.

  Born on November 22, 1943 Billie Jean King started playing tennis when she was 11. She was so passionate about the sport that she even saved money that she earned from odd jobs to buy her own racquet. In 1961, at age 18, King attended California State University, Los Angeles. That same year she won the Wimbledon doubles championship with Karen Hantze Susman. They attracted a lot of attention because they were the youngest team to win. She did not complete her education, quitting school in 1964 to concentrate on tennis. She fulfilled a childhood dream by rising to the top of the women’s tennis world rankings in 1966 and by winning her first major singles title at Wimbledon that year.

King became the first woman and first tennis player to ever receive Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year in 1972. Although she was at the top of women’s tennis, the prize money for women at that time was much lower than the prize money for men. Because of this she became a vocal advocate for equal prize money. In 1971 she was the first female athlete to earn over $100,000 in a single season. But she won $15,000 less than a male champion when she won the U.S. Open in 1972. This caused King to say that if the prize money was not equal she would not play. King convinced eight other women tennis players to protest against the tennis establishment and to form the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA, still the world organization for women’s tournaments today). In 1973 she even served as the union’s first president. “From ‘68 to ’70, we just had less places to compete,” King told Tennis Channel of tournaments being dropped and women getting eight times less pay than men. “The writing was on the wall. If you look at old quotes in the old days, around the late ’60s and ’70s, you’ll see that the men were telling us we should quit and go take care of our husbands.”

In 1973 King took part in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match against self-proclaimed male chauvinist and retired tennis player Bobby Riggs. It brought attention to her campaign for gender equality and equal pay in sports on a global scale. Riggs wanted to prove that men’s tennis was better than women’s tennis. As was to be expected the Battle of the Sexes began with an exaggerated start. With statuesque women surrounding him, Riggs arrived at the court in a rickshaw while wearing a warm-up jacket that read “Sugar Daddy.” King made her own entry on top of a litter that was extravagantly decorated and was being pushed by a group of shirtless men. By playing the first three games of the match while still wearing his “Sugar Daddy” jacket, Riggs demonstrated his lack of regard for King. But he soon realized that this would be a much tougher battle than what he had expected. Over 90 million fans across the world watched as King defeated Riggs in straight sets in the circus-like atmosphere of the match. A movie was made in 2017 telling the extravagant episode. 

Following the Battle, King continued her successful tennis career with even more exposure. She eventually retired in 1984 with 39 singles and doubles Grand Slam titles (12 in singles, 16 in women’s doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles). King became a well known advocate for women’s rights and the Battle was just a turning point in the ongoing fight for complete gender equality. Today the U.S. Tennis Association headquarters which host the U.S. Open every year carries her name.