Houston Astrodrome, Tuesday, September 20, 1973. On one side of the net, Bobby Rigss, 55 years old, Wimbledon champion in 1939, as boastful as he was loudmouthed; the other Billie Jean King, 29 years old, world number 1 on the nascent women’s tennis circuit. More than 30,472 people and 90 million television viewers were in the stands to attend the event live. “battle of the sexes”much more than a tennis match between a man and a woman.
At stake is $100,000 as a prize for the winner, although the only important thing for King It was the responsibility of facing a duel in which the tennis player felt that she was defending an entire sex. “I think that if I lose that match, it will be like going back 50 years,” the tennis player had said in one of the few statements she made before taking to the court.
King accepted the challenge launched by Riggs in response to the request of professional tennis players who asked for equal prizes in tournaments. Winning the title at Wimbledon, at the beginning of the Open era (1968), meant Rod Laver a prize of 2,000 pounds sterling (about 40,000 euros today), while King she had to settle for 750 (13,000) as the women’s champion. A difference that in other tournaments other than the Grand Slam was even greater.
Contract for one dollar
Faced with this unfair situation, King and eight other tennis players (‘The Houston 9‘, they were called) signed a first professional contract for only one dollar to create the Virginia Slims professional circuitwhose first tournament was held in Houston in 1970, with the media support of Gladys Heldmaneditor of World Tennis magazine, and the economic of Joe Cullman, senior executive of the tobacco company Philip Morris. An adventure as brave as it was criticized by the official tennis establishments of the time who saw it as doomed to failure.
Four months before that game, on May 13, 1973, on Mother’s Day in the United States, Riggswho could not face King, played an exhibition against the Australian Margareth Court which he won by a resounding 6-2, 6-1, in just over an hour. The 31-year-old champion of 24 Grand Slams, far from her best form, agreed to play, but without leading any type of claim like King did, with whom she maintained a pulse off the courts in the defense of traditions and differences between men and women with homophobic and racist statements throughout his life in which he was in favor of Apartheid in South Africadeclare that tennis is “full of lesbians” or that transgender children are “the work of the devil.”
Sexist insults
After his resounding victory against Court, Riggs he threw down the gauntlet again King who, until then, had refused to be part of that despicable show. “Tennis players do not have emotional stability to be athletes and they should restrict their activity to bed and the kitchen”Riggs said publicly before an audience that was then laughing. “I love Billie Jean King,” he insisted. “I will play with her wherever I want. On dirt, grass, cement…with skates if necessary, if you think it’s optimal.”
KingFinally, she agreed to play Riggs to end the controversy even though she had nothing to gain and aware that a loss would have been a serious blow to the credibility of professional women’s tennis. The match became a plebiscite on the legitimacy of women to practice competitive sports and, in general, on their social rights.
A gift pig
King She entered the arena as if she were the Empress Cleopatra, riding on a feather-decorated litter carried by four muscular, bare-chested men dressed in the style of former slaves. Riggs He followed him in a cart pulled by a group of models. Riggs gave King a giant Sugar Daddy lollipop, and she responded by offering him a small pig. Among the guests in the box was the painter Salvador Dali and he gave the prize check George Foremanthen world heavyweight champion.
Riggs had received $50,000 (335,000 euros today) for wearing a yellow Sugar Daddy jacket during the match, but which he took off after three games and was unable to do anything. King overwhelmed him ruthlessly 6-4, 6-3 and 6-3. Days before, the organizers of the United States Open had announced the equality of prizes for men and women in the Grand Slam that was then being held in Forest Hills.
“It was important to win, if we wanted people to take women’s tennis and women seriously,” King would explain, when the film ‘The Battle of the Sexes’, was presented in the cinema in 2017. “That match changed many mentalities. Thanks to him, many parents realized that they wanted their daughters to have more opportunities than their sisters and wives had had.”
Unresolved differences
50 years after that September 21, 1973, the economic differences are still latent in the women’s and men’s circuit as demonstrated by the prizes for the champions in the ATP and WTA Finals, where the eight best of the year participate and where Novak Djokovic last year in Turin received a check for $4,470,000 for the title and the French Caroline Garcia 1,680,000 dollars, in Guadalajara (Mexico).
Equality of prizes has only been achieved so far in the Grand Slams and the 1,000 Masters in Indian Wells, Miami and Madrid, although the WTA has launched a plan to achieve it in its circuit set in 2033.
2023-09-20 09:11:18
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