By Anthony Holden
SportsLine Historian
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King raised women's tennis to new heights with her 'Battle of the Sexes' victory.
(Allsport)
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Lachowicz, the public relations chief for the Virginia Slims women's tennis tour, of which King was one of the marquee players, hustled her way around the makeshift tennis court on the floor of the Astrodome passing out to spectators printed invitations to the ``Bobby Riggs Bridge Jump.''
Riggs - the 55-year-old hustler who had challenged King to a best three sets out of five match in what became the mother of all over-hyped yet influential sporting events - had vowed there was no way a woman could beat him. And if King did, he promised to jump off a bridge somewhere in California.
There would be no jumping off a bridge.
By the time King had rolled to a ridiculously easy 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 straight sets victory, Riggs was so tired, he couldn't have jumped off his own bandwagon.
``She was too good, she played too well,'' Riggs said. ``She was playing well within herself and I couldn't get the most out of my game. It was over too quickly.''
All her life, King had been battling for equal rights for women, not only in tennis and in sports, but in society, and it is a cause she continues to champion in her post-tennis life.
But all of her hard work and dedication were dwarfed by what she accomplished in the two hours and four minutes it took to dismantle Riggs. In front of the largest crowd ever to watch a tennis match (30,472), in front of a television audience estimated at 40 million with viewers tuned in via satellite in 36 foreign countries, King proved that female athletes could indeed excel in pressure-filled situations, contrary to Riggs' belief.
She disproved Riggs' chauvinistic philosophies that females could not match a man's competitive fire and athletic skill, that the women's game was far inferior to the men's, and therefore women didn't deserve the same amount of prize money the men were receiving on their respective tours, and at the major tournaments.
Perhaps best of all, she beat Riggs and did what no one thought was possible - she shut his bombastic mouth with a brilliant display of tennis for which he was ill-equipped to handle.
It was the tennis that mattered to King, not all the hyperbole that surrounded the match. While Riggs was making radio and TV appearances, doing hundreds of interviews, and trying everything in his power to mentally frazzle King, she kept to herself, practiced dutifully, and avoided the circus that Riggs was creating.
``I tried to stay somewhat away from the show biz atmosphere,'' she said. ``I realized the one thing Bobby wanted me to do was get caught up in everything. He's a hustler, but in order to hustle you, he's got to see you, know where you are, keep tabs on you. I felt if I hid from him, if I wasn't around physically, it would drive him nuts.''
What drove Riggs nuts more than anything, though, was his inability to put up a fight.
``I couldn't believe how slow he was,'' King said. ``I thought he was faking it. He had to be.''
He wasn't.
Unlike his challenge match against an obviously nervous and psyched-out Margaret Court six months earlier, which he won 6-2, 6-1, Riggs had failed to get inside King's head, and he also failed to recognize the excellence of King's game.
``She was never extended,'' Riggs said. ``The girl was all over me the whole time. I didn't know Billie Jean was so quick.''
The bizarre evening began with King entering the arena on a Cleopatra-style gold chariot, held aloft by five toga-clad men including Dave Roberts, one of the era's finest pole-vaulters.
Riggs arrived in a gold-wheeled Chinese rickshaw pulled by six beautiful models clad in tight red and gold outfits who were dubbed ``Bobby's Bosom Buddies'' for quite obvious reasons.
It was surreal, and it was hard to fathom that this would become one of the most famous sporting events ever contested.
Famous as it was, though, it certainly wasn't artistic.
Trailing 2-1 in the first set and serving at 15-all, Riggs was confronted with the realization that this wasn't going to be as much fun as he thought.
During a long rally, he unleashed nearly his entire arsenal of shots, and King returned every one of them until finally missing a backhand wide. Riggs won that point, but he celebrated by bending over and trying desperately to catch his breath.
Riggs, who had bragged before the match that ``I have no nerves,'' revealed himself as a liar when he double-faulted on set point to lose the first set 6-4. Twenty-six of the 34 points King won in the set had come on outright winners, a clear indication that Riggs couldn't cover the court - and it was only the first set.
``I concentrated hard on winning that first set and when I did, I knew he was in trouble,'' said King. ``That meant he'd have to play at least four tough sets to win the match, probably more hard competitive tennis than he'd played in years."
Riggs broke King in the first game of the second set, but that momentum quickly dissipated when she broke right back in the second game. By now, Riggs' game - predicated on accurately placed and off-speed shots - was already crumbling.
King was hitting the ball hard at Riggs, and he was forced to put more pace on his shots. Unaccustomed to having to hit the ball so hard, he made numerous unforced errors.
King was virtually unchallenged and she won the final two sets by 6-3 scores. ``Everything I thought would work before the match did work,'' she said.
During her career, King won 20 titles at Wimbledon, including the singles crown six times. She won the U.S. Open four times. It is probably shameful that when her name is mentioned, that impressive resume takes second billing to her victory over Riggs.
But this victory meant so much, not only to her, but to female athletes everywhere.
``This is the culmination of 19 years of work,'' she said. ``Since the time they wouldn't let me be in a picture because I didn't have on a tennis skirt, I've wanted to change the game around.''
She did.