Battle of the Sexes (tennis)
| Margaret Court vs. Bobby Riggs | ||||||||||
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| Date | May 13, 1973 | |||||||||
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| Location | Ramona, California | |||||||||
| Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs | |||||||||||||
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| Date | September 20, 1973 | ||||||||||||
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| Location | Houston, Texas | ||||||||||||
| Martina Navratilova vs. Jimmy Connors | ||||||||||
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| Date | September 25, 1992 | |||||||||
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| Location | Las Vegas, Nevada | |||||||||
The Battle of the Sexes is a title given to three notable tennis matches between a male and a female player. The first match was between Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court, over the best of three sets. The second was a nationally televised match between Riggs and Billie Jean King, over the best of five sets. The Riggs v King match was officially dubbed The Battle of the Sexes. The final match was between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova, over the best of three sets and hybrid rules favoring the female player, which was dubbed The Battle of Champions.
Bobby Riggs had been one of the world's top tennis players in the 1940s; he once held the number 1 ranking and had won six major titles during his career. After he retired from professional tennis in 1951, Riggs remained a master promoter of himself and of tennis. In 1973, he opined that the female game was inferior and that even at his current age of 55 he could still beat any of the top female players.
Riggs first challenged Billie Jean King, but when she declined, Margaret Court stepped in. At the time Court was 30 years old and the top female player in the world. On the day of their match, May 13, 1973, 5000 fans came to Mother's Day match in Ramona, California. Bobby Riggs came out on court and presented Margaret Court with Mother's Day flowers, which she accepted while curtsying. During the match, Riggs used his drop shots and lobs to keep Court off balance. His 6–2, 6–1 victory landed Riggs on the cover of both Sports Illustrated and Time magazine.
Suddenly in the national limelight, following his win over Court, Riggs taunted all female tennis players, prompting King to accept a lucrative financial offer to play Riggs in a nationally televised match that the promoters dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes". The match, which had a winner-takes-all prize of $100,000, was held in Houston, Texas on September 20, 1973.
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