I have to disagree with Una. As a tennis enthusiast who had some personal experience with Bobby Riggs, and recently watching the match in question, I think he took a dive. He may have run out of gas at 55 years old, but there were shots that King hit that were easily within Riggs hitting range without too much effort and you can definitely see a half-hearted attempt by Riggs to return them. And some of the shots that he was easily able to return, conspiciously were hit out for King’s point.
Considering what a betting man Riggs was, I submit that he put his chauvanism aside, and placed a very large “side bet” against himself. Riggs enjoyed his fame, but I think he enjoyed the cash even more–especially at age 55 when he was out of his prime.
Welcome to the SDMB, drdean!
Just so you know, a link to the column in question should be provided, like so.
Considering that he had both placed a large bet on himself to win and passed a lie detector test, I’m going to have to take Una’s(and Cecil’s) side on this one, unless you have previously unreleased evidence to support your theory.
I’m not a tennis expert, but I am not too bad at picking out fakers in general. Whether that extends to tennis is open to debate. I also heard from a gentleman who was a big tennis follower at chrisevert.net (who provided me with the DVDs of the two matches) who gave his opinion that it was at least unlikely Riggs faked. Barring a direct admission by Riggs or some other compelling evidence, I think we have to assume he likely did not.
AFAIK Riggs never, ever, even on his deathbed, admitted to throwing the match, and he was repeatedly asked the question up until his last days. He took his well-publicized lie detector test, although those are not that hard to cheat. He could have spun his career up and up and kept the Riggs gravy train of hanging out with Playboy bunnies and being feted all over the US if he had won, and he could have set himself up for a “re-match o’ the Century”, or taken on other women players. And although Riggs was a big gambler and hustler, he also had an ego and there is evidence presented in the sources which Cecil examined which says he was more than a little hurt by losing the match.
No one has stepped forward to swear out an affidavit that Riggs threw the match, and the difference in Riggs training regimen between his preparation for Court versus that of Riggs is well-documented. I think it will be impossible to prove he did not throw the match, but then it’s impossible to prove I’m not a Labrador Retriever.
Riggs was getting leg cramps during the match. IMHO he looked like he saw his imminent defeat and wanted the match to be over with. He was 55 years old and more hustler than athlete at that point. If you want to call that a dive, fine. But I doubt he was motivated by a side bet. You don’t make a bet with a guy betting on his own loss. If there were any confederates involved, they never revealed their part, which is unlikely considering how they could have cashed in on their story. Bobby’s style would have been to say he threw the match later in life instead of admitting defeat.
I remember one magazine article at the time saying that King was saying that she’d found a particular weakness on the Court tapes. Riggs couldn’t handle a ball aimed at his feet when he was already in motion. He couldn’t shift directions and mental map quickly enough to hit the ball. She said that she did it over and over and he could never adjust to it. Those balls would have looked like they were well within his reach.
The person who “remembered” Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King playing by rules that favored King MAY be thinking of different exhibition matches.
That is, Riggs and King played by the same rules, and King just kicked Riggs’ butt, fair and square. However, that wasn’t the last time that matches were set up between male and female tennis stars on TV. A short-lived ABC series called “Challenge of the Sexes” set up such matches several times. I recall they had Bjorn Borg vs. Virginia Wade (he whipped her easily) and Evonne Goolagong vs. Ilie Nastase (she won, mainly because he spent the whole match clowning around). And in THOSE matches, the women WERE given several advantages, including
Men had to hit the ball inside the singles line, while women could use the doubles lines
Men only got one serve, while women got two (which meant a man couldn’t rely on his more powerful serves, because his first fault would be his last).
Actually, I remembered that the rules were set to the advantage of Riggs. If I remember correctly, they setup a rest period between either matches or games. Both players were allowed to rest, but King didn’t need a rest period while Riggs did.
I remembered that because my sister made a comment about it when we watched the match.
I guess the thing I always thought surprising was how the match was parlayed into a statement of equality, as if a 29 year-old champion woman beating a 55 year-old man makes a statement. It does, but the statement is that women are nowhere near the level of men at professional tennis if their best needs to find a 55 year-old guy before she can find an unworthy-enough opponent. Bobby’s main hustle was the pretense that this was a “battle of the sexes.” Reverse the format and find a 55 year-old woman who can go 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 against a29-year-old men’s champion to finish the test of “equality.”
As an aside, is Slug dreaming a bit, or is Billie Jean a bit less voluptuous in real life?
Is the average professional male tennis player stronger and faster than an average female professional tennis player? There’s no doubt about that. However, that doesn’t mean that women’s tennis is somehow a less interesting sport, or that the women who play aren’t as professional as their male counterparts.
What the Battle of the Sexes really showed is that women can play a strong, and exciting game of tennis, and they shouldn’t be treated as second class citizens in the world of sport.
I remember watching the Lady Longhorns basketball team when I was in school. The men’s team stank, but the woman’s team was the champion that year. Too bad they never got the publicity they deserved.
TODAY, that’s true. In the Seventies, however, women’s tennis was painfully boring.
Every year, whenever there’s a rain delay at Wimbledon, they always re-play that “classic” early Seventies match between Billie Jean King and Margaret Court. Play was so slow and the shots were so weak that NOBODY could possibly enjoy watching it.
Today, on the other hand, I’d say women’s tennis is often more fun to watch than men’s, especially at Wimbledon. The women today are about as strong and fast as Connors and Borg were in the Seventies, while the men’s game often has too many aces to be interesting to spectators.
