The scenes of those battles were famous in the 70s of the last century, when the North American developed a wide activity in defense of the feminine cause, boosted by a trail of laurels in the international fields. The prizes were much smaller for them than for them and he wanted to change that.
Born with the surname Moffit (King by her husband Larry) on November 22, 1943 in Long Beach, California, she came to prominence on a softball team. But her parents wanted a less rough sport, in which femininity would not be affected, and so her father introduced her to tennis. “After taking the first lesson I knew what I wanted to do with my life,” she said.
His first crown of relevance dates back to 1961: together with Karen Hantze he won the Wimbledon double. It was the first of her 20 titles in London, as she added six singles, 10 pairs and four mixed.
Precisely those headbands, the last one with Martina Navratilova in 1979, broke the record for most hits on British grass.
Wide is also Billie Jean’s trophy gallery in Open tournaments. He totaled 13 in the United States, four in France and one in Australia. Interestingly, she is the only woman to have triumphed at the US Open on all four surfaces where she played: grass, clay, synthetic and hard.
Throughout his career he obtained 695 victories in singles matches, in a succession that gave him one of the top 10 steps in the ranking of his country for 18 years, while in doubles it was for 12.
In the world, it was number one five times from 1966 to 1972 and was in the “top ten” for 17 years. She is one of only eight players to have held the singles titles at all Grand Slam tournaments. In these circuit events she won 39 times, including individual, double and mixed. A significant event in her defense of the women’s movement occurred in 1973 when she accepted a challenge from a man, Bobby Riggs, the 1939 Wimbledon champion.
Riggs boasted, and with pompous ceremony the so-called Battle of the Sexes began in the Houston Astrodome. Billie Jean took him down a peg with a favorable score of 6-4 and 6-3 double.
Retired from the courts, he did not move away from tennis. Among other responsibilities, she was the captain of the US teams at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and the 1998 Federation Cup. In these competitions, she set a record with 27 consecutive successes in pairs.
The player hated to lose. Victory is fleeting, defeat endures, was her strange sentence.
Obvious: she is included in the Tennis Hall of Fame.
(Taken from Orb)
