1970 Houston Women's Invitation
| 1970 Houston Women's Invitation | |
|---|---|
| Date | September 23–26 |
| Edition | 1st |
| Draw | 8S |
| Prize money | $7,500 |
| Location | Houston, TX, USA |
| Champions | |
 Rosie Casals
|
|
The 1970 Houston Women's Invitation (also known as the Virginia Slims Invitation for sponsorship reasons) was a women's only tennis tournament. The tournament was the first women only tournament and was created by Gladys Heldman.
The tournament was held in protest to the unfair distribution of prize money at tennis events. The women objected to the Pacific Southwest Championships offering a 12:1 ratio split in prize money. Eight women, including Billie Jean King, went with Heldman to play in this one-off tournament.
The Houston Women's invitation received sponsorship from Virginia Slims, making the total prize purse $7,500. The event was contested by eight players and took place at the same time as the Pacific Southwest Championships. The tournament was won by Rosie Casals when she beat Judy Dalton of Australia in the final.
"Outspoken on behalf of women's rights, in and out of sports–tennis in particular—she was possibly the most influential figure in popularizing professional tennis in the United States."
Until the Houston event, all women's tournaments were held alongside men's tennis events. These events were part of the Grand Prix series for women, but unlike the men's series, without a season-ending championship. The Open era began with the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth in 1968. At the first Open Wimbledon, the prize-fund difference was 2.5:1 in favour of men. Billie Jean King won £750 for taking the title, while Rod Laver took £2,000. The total purses of the competitions were £14,800 for men and £5,680 for women. By the 1970s, the pay which had been 2.5:1 ratio between men and women increased. In 1969, ratios of 5:1 in terms of pay were common at smaller tournaments; by 1970, these figures increased to 8:1 and even 12:1.
"Gladys and her magazine became the allies of disgruntled female players."
Gladys Heldman, who was a former player in the amateur era, had been making her mark in American tennis throughout the 1950s and 60s. When the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) voted not to hold the National Indoor Championships because they always lost money, Heldman stepped in to underwrite the losses, and turned in an $8,000 profit. In 1962, she raised $18,000 to charter a plane to take 85 foreign tennis players to New York to play in the US Open and underwrote their expenses as well. Heldman's involvement in tennis went back ten years, to 1953, when she set up World Tennis magazine. It made a loss at first, but by the mid-1960s it sold 43,000 copies, maiking the highest-selling tennis magazine in the world. Heldman used her magazine to increase awareness of gender inequality in sports. In winter 1969, Heldman staged three women's only tournaments: a $5,000 tournament in Philadelphia; another $5,000 tournament at the Vanderblit Club in New York; and a tournament without prize money in Dallas.
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