The Family Circle Cup wasn’t officially a circuit-ending championship, like the men’s WCT doubles finals in Montreal the same week, or the WCT singles finals in Dallas the week after. But it might as well have been. The Virginia Slims women’s tour settled its conflict with the USLTA just in time for 16 of the best players in the world to compete for record-setting prizes.
For Margaret Court, it was her final tournament before taking on Bobby Riggs in a much-anticipated exhibition. Billie Jean King was healthy again, and she no longer had to worry about fighting an international legal battle just to enter Wimbledon. Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong remained outside the Slims fold, but this week even offered an apparent Evert clone: 17-year-old Floridian Laurie Fleming. Fleming won four qualifying rounds, then demolished veteran Julie Heldman for a place in the quarter-finals.
A likely Court-King final was nothing new: The two women had been facing off for more than a decade. This week’s story was the prize pot that one of the stars would take home. This wasn’t just the Family Circle Cup, it was the $100,000 Family Circle Cup, with a $30,000 check for the singles winner. No women’s tennis tournament had ever offered such a rich reward. In fact, it was the biggest prize in the history of women’s sports altogether.
Most of the 16 ladies in Hilton Head had been competing for years with five-figure stakes on the line. But this was something different. They could be forgiven a few jitters this week.
On May 2nd, the first day of play, the nerves-of-steel award went to Nancy (Richey) Gunter, a 30-year-old veteran with two major titles to her name. In the first round, she drew Frenchwoman Françoise Dürr. Dürr had come through qualifying and had vast experience on slow surfaces like the South Carolina clay. After a see-saw battle, Dürr reached match point in the third set. Gunter saved it–and two more–to force a tiebreak. The Frenchwoman came close again in the sudden-death, first-to-five-pointer, taking a 4-2 lead. But Gunter, perhaps the strongest baseliner in the women’s game, cracked three winners in a row to fend off Dürr and advance to the quarters.
Not for nothing did Cliff Richey–Gunter’s brother and a top player himself–say that Rafael Nadal reminded him of Nancy.
Waiting in the round of eight was top seed Margaret Court. The Australian had dominated Gunter for years, winning 11 of 12 since 1965, including their last five meetings. But after dispatching 16-year-old Kathy Kuykendall in the first round, Court came down with a cold. Three victories away from a financial windfall and ten days ahead of her match with Riggs, Margaret’s body betrayed her.
On May 3rd, a sluggish Court dropped the first set to Gunter, 7-5. She mustered the energy to even the score with a 6-1 second set, then grabbed a 2-0 edge in the third. Just when she had secured the momentum, leg cramps struck. She stalled so much that umpire Mike Blanchard threatened a default. Margaret’s husband Barry told a reporter, “She’ll stay in there until she gets cramps on her hands.” He recommended that she play without shoes to improve her circulation. Through some combination of socks, stalling, and sheer stubbornness, Court reached 5-2, 40-15 on her own serve.
For the second day in a row, Gunter played her best with her back to the wall. She saved the match points, and after breaking the Australian’s serve, didn’t allow her another game. Court was in no shape to compete; it just took Nancy a little while to react appropriately. The American took the match by a final score of 7-5, 6-1, 7-5.
Gunter’s victory earned her a substantially bigger chunk of that $100,000 prize pool, along with a semi-final date with third-seed Kerry Melville. King and Rosie Casals comfortably advanced to fill out the final four. While Court was optimistic that her illness would pass, she would have to head to California–and her date with Bobby Riggs–on a losing streak.
* * *
This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents after I post each installment.
You can also subscribe to the blog to receive each new post by email: