In 1974, legendary tennis player Billie Jean King won the US Open beating Evonne Goolagong Cawley of Australia 3-6, 6-3, 7-5. The win marked King’s 4th and final US singles title. The tennis great was introduced to the sport of tennis at age 11. King purchased her first racket for $8 and began her tennis journey on the public courts of Long Beach, CA.
In her illustrious career, King won a total of 39 Grand Slam titles; including 12x singles, 16x women’s doubles, and 11x mixed doubles. In one of the most famous sports matches dubbed “the Battle of the Sexes,” Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in an exhibition witnessed in person by over 30,000 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and by another 50 million TV viewers worldwide. A huge advocate for gender equality, King’s achievements on and off the court earned her a Presidential Medal of Freedom and she was named one of Time MAgazine’s Persons of the Year in 1975. King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987 and in 1990 King was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
