{"id":6765,"date":"2023-10-02T06:15:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T06:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=6765"},"modified":"2023-10-02T06:15:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T06:15:30","slug":"october-2-1973-back-to-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/02\/october-2-1973-back-to-business\/","title":{"rendered":"October 2, 1973: Back to Business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After injury<\/a>, illness<\/a>, a summer-long media circus<\/a>, and a nationally-televised battle<\/a> with Bobby Riggs<\/a>, Billie Jean King<\/a> deserved a break. After finishing up her duties<\/a> in Houston, she took one… for exactly ten days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The week after her victory over Riggs, Madame Superstar sat out as most of the top women gathered for the Slims event in Columbus, Georgia. Chris Evert<\/a> edged out Rosie Casals<\/a> in the semis, then claimed the title when Margaret Court<\/a> withdrew with a pulled calf muscle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One week, apparently, was enough. When the tour made its next stop in Phoenix, King was there. On October 2nd, she returned to action, facing 24-year-old Peggy Michel in the first round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King received a hero’s welcome, but Michel had plenty of support as well. She was a local favorite, having starred for four years as part of the Arizona State tennis team. After a comfortable 6-1 first set for the top seed, Michel took advantage of the familiar conditions to mount a comeback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billie Jean struggled with the altitude, watching many of her serves and groundstrokes float just long. Things got worse in the sixth game of the second set, when she believed a Michel shot was out, but neither the linesman nor the chair umpire saw it. They replayed the point, and from a 3-2 advantage, King was broken to even the set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michel broke again in the twelfth game, helped by a King double fault at set point. The underdog won the set, 7-5. In the decider, though, the veteran regrouped, cut down on the errors, and delivered a 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I got through by the skin of my teeth,” said Billie Jean. It was unusual for her to spend more than an hour on court in the early going; she hadn’t lost a set in a first-round match since April. She admitted–obliquely, anyway–that she couldn’t keep up her pace indefinitely. Phoenix, she said, would be her last tournament of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would you have believed her? Could the warrior of women’s tennis really sit on the sidelines for three months?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spoiler alert: No. No, she could not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/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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After injury, illness, a summer-long media circus, and a nationally-televised battle with Bobby Riggs, Billie Jean King deserved a break. After finishing up her duties in Houston, she took one… for exactly ten days. The week after her victory over Riggs, Madame Superstar sat out as most of the top women gathered for the Slims … Continue reading October 2, 1973: Back to Business<\/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":[3,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1973-redux","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\/6765","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=6765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}