Wilson

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Billie-Jean King Autograph

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1971

 

Billie Jean King achieved athletic glory and shaped the feminist movement with a Wilson Autograph !

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In 1973, 55-year-old tennis player and self-professed “male chauvinist pig” Bobby Riggs wagered that he could defeat any woman player—namely tennis’ 29-year-old queen Billie Jean King, who had won 10 major singles titles and a Wimbledon championship. King accepted Riggs’s challenge and a televised spectacle dubbed the “Battle of the Sexes”—the subject of the namesake 2017 film starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell—ensued.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On September 20, 1973, an estimated 90 million people watched King pummel Riggs, beating him 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 and, along with the 1972 anti-discrimination law Title IV, sparking a surge of women in sports.