Billie Jean Moffitt King (born November 22, 1943 in Long Beach, California) is a retired tennis player from the United States. During her career, she won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 14 Grand Slam women's doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. She is generally considered to be one of the greatest female tennis players and female athletes in history. King has been an outspoken advocate against sexism in sports and society. The tennis match for which the public best remembers her is the "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973, in which she defeated Bobby Riggs, a former Wimbledon men's champion who had been the World No. 1 tennis player for the years 1946 and 1947.

King was born Billie Jean Moffitt. She was born into a conservative Catholic family, the daughter of a firefighter father and homemaker mother. Her younger brother Randy Moffitt grew up to become a professional baseball player (he pitched for 13 years in the major leagues for the San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, and Toronto Blue Jays). Billie Jean learned to play tennis on the public courts of Long Beach, California, and first gained international recognition in 1961 when, aged 17, she won the women's doubles title at Wimbledon in her first attempt (partnering Karen Hantze Susman). At Wimbledon in 1962, King toppled the number one player in the world and top seed, Margaret Court, in a stunning first round match.

In 1965, Billie Jean married law student Lawrence King.

In 1966, King won the first of her six singles titles at Wimbledon. She followed up in 1967 by winning the singles titles at both Wimbledon and the US Championships. She developed a reputation as an aggressive, hard-hitting net-rusher, with excellent speed and a highly competitive personality. King once said, "Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever."

King was a significant force in the opening of tennis to professionalism. Before the start of the Open era in 1968, she earned US$100 a week as a playground instructor and student at Los Angeles State College between playing at major tennis tournaments. In 1967, she criticized the United States Lawn Tennis Association in a series of press conferences, denouncing what she called the association's practice of "shamateurism," where top players were paid under the table to guarantee their entry into tournaments. King argued that this was corrupt and kept the game highly elitist. When the open era began, King campaigned for equal prize money in the men's and women's games. As the financial backing of the women's game improved, King became the first woman athlete to earn over US$100,000 in prize money in 1971. But inequalities continued. In 1972, King won the US Open but received US$15,000 less than the men's champion Ilie Năstase. She stated that if the prize money was not equal by the following year, she would not play. In 1973, the US Open became the first major tournament to offer equal prize money for men and women.

Despite King's achievements at the world's biggest tennis tournaments, the public best remembers King for her win over a 55-year-old man in 1973. Bobby Riggs had been a top men's player in the 1930s and 1940s in both the amateur and professional ranks, becoming, in the mid-40s, the world's best player. He then went on to be a well-known tennis hustler who made a living promoting himself and playing in challenge matches. In 1973, he took on the role of male chauvinist and, claiming that the women's game was so inferior to the men's game even a 55-year-old like himself could beat the current top female players, he challenged Margaret Court to a match and beat her 6-2, 6-1. King, who previously had rejected challenges from Riggs, then accepted a lucrative financial offer to play him at the Houston Astrodome in Texas on September 20, 1973, in an event dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes." The match garnered huge publicity. In front of 30,492 spectators and a worldwide television audience estimated at 50 million people in 37 countries, King beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. The match is considered a very significant event in developing greater recognition and respect for women's tennis. King said, "I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match. It would ruin the women's [tennis] tour and affect all women's self-esteem." In recent years, a persistent urban legend has arisen, particularly on the Internet, that the rules of tennis were modified for the match so that Riggs had only one serve for King's two and that King was allowed to hit into the doubles court area. This is completely false - the match was played under the normal rules of tennis.

King was instrumental in establishing the women's tennis tour in the 1970s, and worked tirelessly to promote it. She became the first president of the women's players union - the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) - in 1973. In 1974, she founded "Womensports" magazine and started the Women's Sports Foundation. She also helped to found World Team Tennis.

King's triumph at the French Open in 1972 made her only the fifth woman in tennis history to win the singles titles at all four Grand Slam events, a "career Grand Slam." She also won a career Grand Slam in mixed doubles. In women's doubles, only the Australian Open eluded her. She won a record 20 career titles at Wimbledon - 6 singles, 10 women's doubles, and 4 mixed doubles. (Martina Navratilova also has 20 career titles at Wimbledon.)

King retired from competitive play in singles at the end of 1983. She reached the semifinals in her final appearance at Wimbledon, losing to Andrea Jaeger 6-1, 6-1 after beating Kathy Jordan 7-5, 6-4 in the quarterfinals, Wendy Turnbull 7-5, 6-3 in the fourth round, and Rosie Casals, her longtime doubles partner, 6-3, 6-4 in the third round. The final singles match of her career was a second round 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 loss to Catherine Tanvier at the 1983 Australian Open.

King played doubles sporadically from 1984 through 1990. She retired from competitive play in doubles in March 1990. In her last competitive doubles match, King and her partner, Jennifer Capriati, lost a second round match to Brenda Schultz-McCarthy and Andrea Temesvari 6-3, 6-2 at the Virginia Slims of Florida tournament.

According to the end-of-year rankings compiled by the London Daily Telegraph from 1914 through 1972, King was ranked first in the world three times: 1966, 1967, and 1968. King also was ranked first for 1972 and 1974, when the official rankings were produced by the Women's Tennis Association.

During her career, King won 67 professional and 37 amateur singles titles and helped the United States win the Fed Cup seven times. Her career prize money totalled US$1,966,487.

King played 51 Grand Slam events in singles from 1959 through 1983 (197-39 .835 win-loss record): 21 at Wimbledon (96-15 win-loss record), 18 at the US Championships/Open (63-14 win-loss record), 7 at the French Championships/Open (22-6 win-loss record), and 5 at the Australian Championships/Open (16-4 win-loss record). She won 12 Grand Slam singles titles: 6 at Wimbledon, 4 at the US Championships/Open, 1 at the French Open, and 1 at the Australian Championships. She won the last 7 Grand Slam singles finals in which she played, 4 of which were against Evonne Goolagong. All but one of her Grand Slam championships were on grass. She was the losing finalist in 6 Grand Slam singles events. She reached at least the semifinals in 27 and at least the quarterfinals in 40 out of her 51 attempts.

Awards And Honors

In 1972, King became the first tennis player to be named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of The Year.

In 1975, Seventeen magazine polled its readers and found that King was the most admired woman in the world. Golda Meir, who had been Israel's prime minister until the previous year, finished second.

King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1990, Life magazine named her one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century."

Personal life

In the mid-1990s, King became the captain of the United States Fed Cup team and coach of its women's Olympic tennis squad. She guided the US to the Fed Cup in 1996 and helped Lindsay Davenport, Gigi Fernandez, and Mary Joe Fernandez capture Olympic Gold Medals. In 2002, King dismissed Jennifer Capriati from the Fed Cup team, saying Capriati had violated rules that forbade bringing along and practicing with personal coaches. Opinion was sharply divided, with many supporting King's decision but many feeling the punishment was too harsh, especially in hindsight when Monica Seles and Lisa Raymond were defeated by lower-ranked Austrians Barbara Schett and Barbara Schwartz. The following year, Zina Garrison succeeded King as Fed Cup captain.

In 1971, King began an intimate relationship with her secretary Marilyn Barnett. When the relationship became public in a lawsuit ten years later, King acknowledged it and became the first prominent American athlete to openly admit to having a gay relationship. In 2001, she received an award from GLAAD, an organisation devoted to reducing discrimination against gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, for "furthering the visibility and inclusion of the community in her work." The award noted her involvement in production and the free distribution of educational films, as well as serving on the boards of several AIDS charities.

King currently resides in New York and Seattle. In 1987, she divorced Lawrence King. On a PBS program on March 20, 2005, she discussed the fact that her sexual side has been the greatest struggle of her life. She pointed out that she came from a personally conservative background, which worked against her being open about her orientation, as constrasted with less inhibited players such as Martina Navratilova.

Trivia

• The Elton John song "Philadelphia Freedom" is a tribute to King (see[]). John was and is a friend of King's. On the aforementioned PBS program, John talked about how he brought a demo copy of the record to spin for her right after he had recorded it.

• Friends have been known to call her "Jillie Bean"

Champion

Year Championship Opponent in Final Score in Final
1966 Wimbledon Maria Bueno 6-3, 3-6, 6-1
1967 Wimbledon Ann Haydon Jones 6-3, 6-4
1967 US Championships Ann Haydon Jones 11-9, 6-4
1968 Australian Championships Margaret Court 6-1, 6-2
Open Era
1968 Wimbledon Judy Tegart-Dalton 9-7, 7-5
1971 US Open Rosemary Casals 6-4, 7-6
1972 French Open Evonne Goolagong 6-3, 6-3
1972 Wimbledon Evonne Goolagong 6-3, 6-3
1972 US Open Kerry Melville 6-3, 7-5
1973 Wimbledon Chris Evert 6-0, 7-5
1974 US Open Evonne Goolagong 3-6, 6-3, 7-5
1975 Wimbledon Evonne Goolagong 6-0, 6-1

Grand Slam doubles finals

• Australian Championships / Australian Open:

• • Women's Doubles champion - none

• • Women's Doubles finalist (2) - 1965, 1969

• • Mixed Doubles champion - 1968

• • Mixed Doubles finalist - none

• French Championships / French Open:

• • Women's Doubles champion - 1972

• • Women's Doubles finalist (2) - 1968, 1970

• • Mixed Doubles champion (2) - 1967, 1970

• • Mixed Doubles finalist - 1968

• Wimbledon:

• • Women's Doubles champion (10) - 1961, 1962, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1979

• • Women's Doubles finalist (2) - 1964, 1976

• • Mixed Doubles champion (4) - 1967, 1971, 1973, 1974

• • Mixed Doubles finalist (3) - 1966, 1978, 1983

• US Championships / US Open:

• • Women's Doubles champion (5) - 1964, 1967, 1974, 1978, 1980