{"id":6159,"date":"2023-04-12T09:57:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T09:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=6159"},"modified":"2023-04-12T09:57:31","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T09:57:31","slug":"april-12-1973-riggs-loses-to-an-old-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/12\/april-12-1973-riggs-loses-to-an-old-man\/","title":{"rendered":"April 12, 1973: Riggs Loses to an Old Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ilie N\u0103stase<\/em> at the Palm Beach Masters doubles tournament<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In April 1973, Bobby Riggs was 55 years old. That put him in just the right demographic to enter the Palm Beach Masters. The $25,000 event was billed as the richest doubles tournament ever. It featured a mix of past and present greats, including Ilie N\u0103stase<\/a>, Jimmy Connors<\/a>, and several of Riggs’s contemporaries: Don Budge<\/a>, Richard Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a><\/a>, and Pancho Segura<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The talk of the tournament, of course, was Bobby’s upcoming match with Margaret Court<\/a>, barely a month away. Most of the men playing in Palm Beach were ready to bet on Riggs. The 55-year-old hustler told anyone who would listen that he was in impeccable shape, practicing every day, jogging, and watching his diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tournament kicked off on April 12th. Budge complained that the organizers didn’t pair up players fairly. Riggs–probably the fittest of the older men–was teamed with 27-year-old Australian Tony Roche<\/a>, who already had ten doubles majors to his name. Their first-round opponents were Sidney Wood and Hugh Curry: a limping 61-year-old businessman and a local club pro, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should have been a rout turned into a farce. Wood, who won the 1931 Wimbledon title on a walkover, always seemed to be in the right place. The grandfather of three volleyed brilliantly and fought through leg cramps that slowed him down for much of the match. He hadn’t played a set in eight months, but on the fifth match point, he and Curry beat Riggs and Roche, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’m just glad the sun started to go down,” said Wood, “or I wouldn’t have made it.”<\/p>\n\n\n

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The all-star lineup in Palm Beach<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On national television a few days later, N\u0103stase and Vic Seixas<\/a> beat Gonz\u00e1lez and Clark Graebner for the title. It clearly wasn’t how the tournament was supposed to end. Organizers scrambled to put Riggs on the final-day schedule. Bobby was to team with Frank Parker<\/a> in a “Century Championship” between doubles teams with a combined age of at least 100 years, and he would play singles against Curry in a so-called “Bobby Riggs Hustle Match.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riggs’s fame, not to mention his reputation, preceded the Battle of the Sexes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Sidney Wood, his stay in Palm Beach was a short one. He lost in the second round and went back to New York City, where he ran a business that built tennis courts. The 1970s tennis boom treated him well: His firm installed 500 new courts in 1973 alone. Wood also invented the synthetic Supreme Court surface, which the World Championship Tennis circuit used for indoor events that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the upset in Florida, Wood continued to back his fellow veteran. “Riggs has been losing to a lot of fellows lately, which surprises me,” he told a reporter in the run-up to the Court match. “I don’t know how his legs are, but if he’s fit, I favor him.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts<\/a>. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com<\/a> front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents<\/a> after I post each installment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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In April 1973, Bobby Riggs was 55 years old. That put him in just the right demographic to enter the Palm Beach Masters. The $25,000 event was billed as the richest doubles tournament ever. It featured a mix of past and present greats, including Ilie N\u0103stase, Jimmy Connors, and several of Riggs’s contemporaries: Don Budge, … Continue reading April 12, 1973: Riggs Loses to an Old Man<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,31,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1973-redux","category-doubles","category-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}