40 years later, "Battle of the Sexes" more myth than reality

Forty years ago, while the country was embroiled in the Watergate scandal, another “scandal” was in the works, courtesy of an aging former professional tennis player named Bobby Riggs. The ire of feminists everywhere was raised when Riggs went out of his way to prove that “If I am to be a chauvinist pig, I want to be the number one pig.” Riggs’ attempt to put women “in their place” was in such deliberate poor taste that it was obviously a show. Of course, feminists were not exactly above making outrageously misandrist statements themselves—and that wasn’t for “show” no matter how ludicrous the claims. 

Riggs had a successful tennis career in the 1930s and 40s, but when he first challenged the top female tennis players to exhibition matches, waiving $5,000 checks as inducements, it was perhaps not so much his sexist pronouncements that offended, but the implication that the women’s game was of such inferior caliber that a pudgy, short 55 years old man was superior even to best women’s player. Not that the best female players were eager to take him on; who wanted to be blamed for proving his theory correct? 

But Margaret Court, the acknowledged greatest female tennis player in game, decided to take him on. Riggs trained hard for the match, and told his son Larry that he was confident that he was going to “destroy” Court. And for the most part he did, beating her 6-2, 6-1. The thrashing didn’t sit well with Billie Jean King, who was next in line to Court’s tennis crown. King was an ardent feminist, and she was determined to remove the taint of female “inferiority.” 

Following the Riggs/King “Battle of the Sexes” match witnessed by a record tennis crowd of 30,000-plus and millions more around the world, the New York Times opined that 

“Mrs. Billie Jean King struck a proud blow for herself and women around the world with a crushing 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 rout of Bobby Riggs tonight in their $100,000 winner- take-all tennis match at the Astrodome…In an atmosphere more suited for a circus than a sports event, the 29-year-old Mrs. King ended the bizarre saga of the 55-year-old hustler, who had bolted to national prominence with his blunt putdowns of women's tennis and the role of today's female…Mrs. King squashed Riggs with tools synonymous with men's tennis, the serve and volley. She beat Bobby to the ball, dominated the net and ran him around the baseline to the point of near exhaustion in the third set, when he suffered hand cramps and trailed, 2-4…Most important, perhaps for women everywhere, she convinced skeptics that a female athlete can survive pressure-filled situations and that men are as susceptible to nerves as women.”

Or at least that was one opinion on the matter, which of course had to be “politically correct.” Others noted that Riggs was no great physical specimen; even against male competition in his prime he made-up for these disadvantages with play described as that of a “master tactician and strategist.” But he showed none of those qualities against King as he did against Court; it didn’t go unnoticed that Riggs looked purposefully lethargic (as if he was on “sleeping pills” according to one observer) from the start, and continually lobbed softballs either at King or into the net. Most of these “mistakes” seemed to occur just when the match threatened to become too “competitive.” King frequently hit short shots of which most professional male players in their prime would have hit comebacks leaving her sprawled helplessly on the ground. 

Yet King still proclaims that her defeat of a man who played like he was 75 was a “proud” achievement for all women. But only the most political types could have  thought this was a “significant” victory. I recall my own thoughts at the time as considering the match to be a bit of a joke, especially after seeing a picture of Riggs wearing an oversized baby dress and bonnet. I wasn’t a tennis fan and had no opinion on the quality of women’s play, and apparently unlike more “astute” observers I didn’t believe that some old guy should beat supposedly the best female players. All I saw was this buffoonish loudmouth deliberately making a fool of himself by intentionally getting under the skin of notoriously thin-skinned feminists. It was all a performance, and if the intention was to generate publicity and interest in an event that most people would otherwise have no interest in, then it did, unfortunately, work. 

But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that this “Battle of the Sexes” match proved absolutely nothing, save that the top female tennis player at the time could beat a man twice her age who was obviously out-of-shape (he reportedly spent more time on the party circuit than in the training room) and played just well enough not be accused of “throwing” the match. Another so-called “battle of sexes” tennis match, between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova in 1993, on the surface appeared to be a more legitimate test. It wasn’t; Connors was allowed only one serve per point, while his opponent was allowed the regulation two serves, as well as hitting her serves into the doubles alley. Despite these tennis “handicaps,” Connors managed to recover from a slow start to win going away. 

Today, “battle of sexes” tennis matches are nothing more than comedy routines; even the Williams Sisters were non-competitive against a 200th-ranked male nobody in 1998. When she is healthy, Serena’s serves may leave her female opponents flatfooted, but even now she “jokingly” doubts that she could win a point playing against one of the better male players. I am also reminded of a "children's event" some years ago staged at the U.S. Open, where Andy Roddick was forced to play straight man with a "comedian" in a doubles match with Martina Hingis and Ana Ivanovic. Of course the "girls" were supposed to win all the points, but Roddick seemed to lose interest in his "role" after awhile.Without warning he rocketed a return volley right between Hingis and Ivanovic that left both of them flat on the ground and giving Roddick the evil eye for showing them up. It was the only genuinely amusing moment during the painful-to-watch proceedings.

So what went “wrong” in 1973? Connors states in his recently published autobiography that he laid down a bet for $1 million on himself, wagering that he would lose less than nine games in two sets in beating Navratilova (he won his bet). He also mentioned that he noticed Riggs in the crowd--looking as if he was about to have a heart attack until Connors covered the betting line. Now comes news that Riggs may have deliberately thrown his match against King in order to pay off a large loan to his Mafia connections. According to ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” after the loss to King Riggs told his son Larry that "This was the worst thing in the world I've ever done.” But what exactly did he mean—being made a fool of in front of millions of people, or what he had done to make the result inevitable?

Nine months before the match, Hal Shaw—an assistant golf pro at the Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in Tampa, Florida—claims to have overheard a strange meeting between mob lawyer Frank Ragano, bosses Santo Trafficante Jr. and Carlos Marcello, and an unidentified fourth man. Riggs was well known as an unrepentant gambling man and hustler; he once boasted that “If I can't play for big money, I play for a little money. And if I can't play for a little money, I stay in bed that day.” Getting into debt was also part of the “game,” and he allegedly owed the mob $100,000. Being short of cash at the time, he concocted a plan which Ragano was pitching to Trafficante and Marcello. Riggs would orchestrate and promote an “event” between himself and the top female tennis players; he expected to beat Court easily, with public opinion assuming the same when he faced King. The mobsters would lay bets on King to win, and Riggs would take a dive, although taking care not to appear to be engaging in a fraud. 

There is no way to independently verify this story, but it certainly has the benefit of a certain level of plausibility, given Riggs’ sharply contrasting performances against Court and King. King, of course, scoffs at the suggestion that Riggs “threw” their match, blaming it on sexism and men who refuse to believe a woman could beat a man in a fair match. The problem, of course, is that the “Battle of Sexes” wasn’t really a match between equals.  If King had played someone who was equal in age and technical ability, the male player’s greater power and speed would have overwhelmed her. The only way a female tennis player could beat a male player of similar position is if the male player was significantly inferior in some way (like a broken leg) that could be successfully exploited.                                                                                                                    

Reality is sometimes hard to take. In this case, fantasy trumped reality, and outside a few bruised egos and many more that were inflated, nothing was really learned from all of this. Regardless if Riggs took a dive or not, the infamous “Battle of the Sexes” was never a true test between equals, only a publicity stunt that merely served a political purpose.