The Battle of the Sexes

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The Battle of the Sexes was a nationally televised tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, held at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, on September 20, 1973. Riggs was a master showman, sports hustler, and a 1940s tennis star who, for three years, had once been the World No. 1 tennis player. He challenged King to a match after beating another top female tennis player, Margaret 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, he played the male chauvinist card and came 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. This turned out to be false. Riggs first challenged Margaret Court, 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 an unprepared Court off balance. His easy 6–2, 6–1 victory landed Riggs on the cover of both Sports Illustrated and Time magazine.

Suddenly in the national limelight, Riggs taunted all female tennis players, prompting Billie Jean King to accept a lucrative financial offer to play Riggs in a nationally televised match that the promoters dubbed as The Battle of the Sexes. On September 20, at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, King entered the arena in Cleopatra style, carried aloft in a chair held by four bare-chested muscle men dressed in the garb of ancient slaves. Riggs followed in a rickshaw drawn by a bevy of gorgeous scantily-clad models.

When the match began, King had learned from Margaret Court's humiliation and was ready for Riggs's game. Rather than playing her own usual aggressive game, she stayed back for the most part, handling Riggs's lobs and soft shots easily, making Riggs cover the entire court as she ran him from side to side, 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. Even from the net, the result was the same: King defeated him handily, 6–4, 6–3, 6–3. Still, some critics were not impressed by King's victory. King was 26 years younger and some experts claimed that it was more an age vs 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." 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.

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.

There was also widespread speculation that Riggs had purposely lost, in order to win large sums of money that he had bet against himself. 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."

Nearly thirty years later, a 2001 ABC television docudrama entitled When Billie Beat Bobby recounted the match and the lead-up to it.