Billie Jean King should be celebrating this year, as 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of a movement she was part of that changed women’s tennis forever.
In 1970, King and eight other female tennis players, known as the “Original Nine,” rebelled against the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association over being treated unequally and paid less than men.
Billie Jean King holds the Virginia Slims trophy in 1970.Getty Images
“Nine of us signed $1 contracts,” King said last week of the movement that established the Virginia Slims tournament, which in turn was the basis for the current WTA Tour.
King and six other American women — Peaches Bartkowicz, Rosie Casals, Julie Heldman, Kristy Pigeon, Nancy Richey and Valerie Ziegenfuss — and two Australians, Judy Tegart Dalton and Kerry Melville Reid — were all threatened with expulsion by the USLTA.
“The way we have it now, the WTA and all of that, that’s because the nine of us started it,” King said. “And we were willing to never play again — never play at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, we didn’t care.”
Tennis had plans to honor the “Original Nine” this year, especially at majors, beginning with Wimbledon. But Wimbledon was canceled earlier this month due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the French Open has been postponed until the fall.
“We were supposed to celebrate all year long at the majors and other places and now, of course, that’s gone,” King said. “But that’s all right, we will do it next year, hopefully. Maybe we won’t. It doesn’t matter.”
What matters right now is people, and especially athletes, coming together during the COVID-19 pandemic, King said.
The future of this year’s U.S. Open was not certain as of this writing, and the facility where it is held, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y., has been turned into a temporary hospital and was beginning to accept COVID-19 patients as of last week.
“I was thrilled,” King told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour earlier this month, at the news that the center that bears her name was being used to help to ease New York’s health care crisis caused by the pandemic. “There’s nothing like contributing to the COVID-19 virus [relief effort] right now in any way we can.”
King is a global ambassador of the International Tennis Federation and does not own the tennis center that bears her name. But she talked to CNN and The Wall Street Journal about how the center, which was already providing thousands of meals to children and first responders prior to being converted to a hospital, was filling a need. “I like what tennis is doing, what sports is doing, to provide clarity,” King said.
“I think it’s my job,” she said of giving interviews about the efforts to aid COVID-19. “I think it’s everybody’s job to do what they can to help in this pandemic.”
That’s especially true for athletes, she said. King started utilizing her “platform” long before athletes were using that word to describe the influence they could bring to bear on problems throughout society.
“We [athletes] have to think about others because we are one of the lucky ones.”
King and her longtime partner, Ilana Kloss, have been sheltering in place in their home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for the past month or so. In that time, King said, she’s been out only four times. She is trying to support local businesses and is ordering takeout from restaurants in her neighborhood that are still open.
At 7 p.m., she and Kloss perform the ritual most New Yorkers take part in these days to honor the city’s health care workers. “Every night at 7, we bang pots and pans and scream,” she said.
King can see positives in home isolation. “This is the first true vacation I have probably had since I was 11 years old.”
Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @SBJLizMullen.
