Less than 24 hours after polishing off Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome, Billie Jean King was back at the Net Set Racquet Club in suburban Houston. She had won two matches at the Virginia Slims tournament on Monday, and on September 21st, she returned to play the quarter-final.
In front of about 400 fans–quite a shift from 30,000 the night before–King took apart 15-year-old Robin Tenney, 6-1, 6-1. She probably spent more time with the press, fielding the inevitable questions about a Battle of the Sexes rematch, than she did on court. Another contrast: Instead of $100,000, this victory was worth about $1,000.
In Saturday’s semi-final, Billie Jean would meet her old friend (and Battle television commentator) Rosie Casals. The two women had come a long way in just three years.
The Houston event was not one of the most lucrative or well-attended stops on the Slims circuit. But it carried a great deal of historical weight. In 1970, the top women pros objected to a insulting prize-money split at the Pacific Southwest in Los Angeles, a longstanding stalwart on the tennis calendar. Gladys Heldman of World Tennis magazine put together her own event in Houston for the same week. Nine women signed symbolic one-dollar contracts, and the Pac Southwest field was gutted. Casals won that first tour event.
The next year, King and Casals went back to Los Angeles. The prize money situation had not improved, and the ladies had a convenient target for their dissatisfaction in Jack Kramer, the tournament director and former superstar player. Kramer believed that fans didn’t want to watch women’s tennis. “Evidence” piled up as the ladies were exiled to outer courts and men’s matches entertained the grandstand crowds. A week–well, a decade–of frustration came to a head after a bad line call in the 1971 final. Midway through a first-set tiebreak, King and Casals walked out, and the match went down as a double default.
That was the last professional women’s match at the Pacific Southwest. While the Los Angeles tournament retained a prime position in the men’s Grand Prix, awarding $11,000 to its 1973 champion, the women’s event turned into a sideshow. There was no longer any prize money at all.
On September 21st, when King joined Casals, Nancy Richey, and Françoise Dürr in the Houston semis, 17-year-old Kathy May led a distinctly lesser field into the Pacific Southwest final four. The Los Angeles Times reported on the men’s matches–Jimmy Connors saved match point to squeak past Stan Smith–but the unofficial organ of the Southern California tennis world didn’t bother to mention to May or her rivals.
Kramer, Connors, Ilie Năstase, and Arthur Ashe were part of a crowd that followed the Battle of the Sexes on locker room televisions. One group of line judges abandoned their posts to join them, and Kramer had to man a line himself. When Connors and Năstase were called to play a doubles match, they didn’t budge; Kramer had to push them out the door.
As it turned out, people really wanted to watch women’s tennis.
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This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents after I post each installment.
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