Rare recordings emphasize the fight for ladies tennis

Rarely heard speech admissions from Trailing Trailing Tennis Entrepreneur Gladys Heldman and Firstand accounts by Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals and Nancy Richey are characteristics of a Tennisworthy Podcast released this week by the International Tennis Hall of Fame, History Month.

Introduced by ITHF president Patrick Mcenroe and compiled by appreciated tennis historian Chris Bowers, the 25-minute oral history brings the tumultuous summer of 1970 to life, when nine of the world's best female players joined forces with Heldman to rewrite the future of professional tennis.

Before Bowers delves into the archiving interviews, Bowers determines the scene.

Original 9: A legacy of independence and empowerment

For a revolution, or a war of independence, it requires two things: the right context and the right people, he said. In the large Battle for Independence in 1970 that brought the modern tennis of the ladies, there were two crucial people.

One of them was Billie Jean King.

The other was held, the visionary owner and publisher of World Tennis Magazine. And the context was the increasing gap in playing opportunities and paying for female players, who had not benefited from the appointment of Open Tennis in 1968.

Against the wider rumors of social change, things came to a highlight in August 1970 when Jack Kramers prestigious Pacific Southwest announced that the women's field would be paid little more than a tenth of the men.

An annoyed king, Casals and Richey invited Holtman – who was a mentor and confidant, as well as a smart businesswoman – to have lunch and told her that they wanted to boycott the tournament of the Kramers.

Men still ran the tournaments, they promote, and very few women were involved, said Casals. It was something that was difficult to maneuver, because every time we had to talk to someone about women, it was a man.

Heldman advised restraint, but when her efforts on diplomacy with Kramer failed, she started to organize her own eight-woman tournament in the Houston Racquet Club. This inevitably attracted the anger of managers at the USLTA and their counterparts in Australia, who threatened every player who participated in the non -set event.

Heldman threw caution at the wind and was ready to invest her own money in the company, but she asked her girlfriend Joe Cullman, the tennis-crazy chief of tobacco giant Philip Morris, if she could use his company Virginia Slims-Branding for added cachet. He agreed and, even better, provided a third of the prize money of $ 7,500.

The podcast goes behind the loaded scenes of the iconic dollar drawing photo taken on September 23, 1970 in Houston and explains the legal goal behind the $ 1 dollar pro contracts Heldman signed with its players.

Although these contracts protected the athletes and indeed anyone associated with the tournament, they did not prevent tennis authorities from imposing fines – what they did in the form of suspension through official competition, including the Grand Slams.

Nevertheless, the players were ready to take a position.

I mean, there was no money, so it was worth taking the chance, Richey said. I prefer to throw myself in with Gladys Heldman who was a success in everything she ever did, versus the USLTA who did nothing.

And what did King think when she kept that enormously symbolic dollar bill up?

Oh, my God, actually went to try to do this. And I kept calling that whole week [then-husband] Larry and saying, this is nice to have this tournament. But what then?

The Virginia Slims Invitational was won by Casals, who defeated Dalton in the final. The event was such a success-especially in the eyes of Cullman-Dat a 21 tournament Virginia Slims-Circuit was mounted at the beginning of 1971.

It was an incredible performance of organization and logistics, led by Heldman, but the sports politics continued to be loaded and the USLTA even assembled a rival tour.

So on the eve of Wimbledon in 1973, Billie Jean, who understood that distributing the top talent was just a bad thing, brought 60 players together for a different ride of that moment in London's Gloucester Hotel.

During that meeting the players chose unity when they voted to form the WTA. Later that summer the US Open introduced the same prize money and King defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Geslachten. Womens Tennis was on the road – with a little help from his friends.

If the USLTA had not suspended them, if Jack Kramer had not shouted about ladies' knowledge, if he had not laid them out, Domestnis could have died, Heldman said in 1979, the year she was admitted to the Hall of Fame.

It lived because it came to a fighting climax and because Billie Jean and the other women, but mainly Billie Jean, was such a great spokeswoman.

The Tennisworthy podcast is further enlivened by anecdotes from Judy Tegart Dalton and Julie DeMan, Gladys Daughter. The powerful posse that went into the history books, since the original 9 also consists of Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon, Kerry Melville Reid and Valerie Ziegenfuss.

In 2021 they became the first group of players who were admitted to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

The enormous size of what the original 9 achieved went much further than tennis, Bowers said.

How much it is considered part of the LIB movement of the ladies of the 60s and 70s, is open to questions. Not all pioneering female players of that time see it so broad. But there is no doubt that they inspired people in other sports and layers of life.

This year's induction celebration will be held in the Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island from 21-23 August, with Maria Sharapova and Bob and Mike Bryan to be anchored.

Highlights of the fan festival around the main ceremony include a pro-cell brity tournament consisting of two teams consisting of Hall of Famers Andy Roddick, Kim Clijsters, Tracy Austin, Jim Courier and Gigi Fernandez.

Listen to the full original 9 podcast. And Here is information About how you can enjoy these summers.