The Battle of the Sexes concept was so popular that, for a few months in 1973, it seemed like everyone would have a go at it. Throughout the summer, local clubs hosted their own, pitting, say, a woman teaching pro against a men’s age-group champ. In one oddball variation, the woman was seven months pregnant.
By the time Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs settled things at the Astrodome, the public had had enough of the banter and ballyhoo. Riggs wanted a rematch, but America wanted a break.
The last gasp* of the season’s sensation came three days after the Battle itself, in Atlanta on September 23rd. Riggs had appeared at the city’s Bitsy Grant Tennis Center for a doubles exhibition with a few other prominent senior citizens the day before. The main event of the weekend, though, was an intersex matchup even more ridiculous than Billie-versus-Bobby.
* Haha, no, of course this wasn’t the last gasp.
The main drawing card in Atlanta was the facility’s namesake, Bryan “Bitsy” Grant. The 63-year-old pride of Southern tennis had first cracked the national top ten in 1930, won two matches against Australia for the 1937 Davis Cup squad, and twice reached the semi-finals at the US National Championships. Like Riggs, he was a touch artist. The nickname gave it away: He stood only five feet, four inches tall.
For a $500 prize, the eminent Georgian would take on the second-ranking woman player in the South, 19-year-old Betsy Butler. Butler had starred the previous year at Augusta College, playing No. 1 singles on the men’s team. She hadn’t yet tallied many victories on the pro tour, but just a few days earlier, she had lined up in doubles against Evonne Goolagong and aced the Australian twice in a row. Grant had never served as well as the tall teenager already could.
Chris Cobbs, the reporter who covered the match for the Atlanta Constitution, sounded like he would have rather spent his Sunday at home. Bitsy’s first serve kept missing the target, and after he forced a third set, his 63-year-old legs couldn’t keep up anymore. Butler, wrote Cobbs, “dealt another blow to male chauvinist pride and answered a few questions nobody had even thought to ask.”
Young Betsy took the “Atlanta regional” Battle of the Sexes, 6-1, 5-7, 6-3. “A man my age,” said Grant, “has to be a damn fool to play singles like this.”
He was talking about himself, of course. But he could take solace in the fact that he wasn’t the only damn fool running around in September 1973. In defiance of both common sense and Father Time, legions more were ready to cheer the old men on.
* * *
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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