What was a tennis player to do after picking up a $25,000 check from the US Open? In 1973, the answer was simple: Find an exhibition, get on a plane, and pick up some more money.
Or, more accurately, simply say yes when the promoters chase after you.
On Saturday, Margaret Court won a tough singles match against Evonne Goolagong for the Forest Hills title. On Sunday, she played the title matches in women’s and mixed doubles, each one going to 5-all in the third. On Monday, she faced off against Goolagong again, now at the new Hilton Head Racquet Club in South Carolina. This one was easy by comparison: The veteran won, 6-4, 6-3.
Finally, on Tuesday, September 11th, Court played Chris Evert–her victim just four days earlier in the US Open semi-final–to conclude the World Invitational Tennis Classic, the bloated moniker of the Hilton Head mini-event. The contest was every bit as close, if not quite as high-quality, as the match in Queens. Margaret failed twice to serve out a straight-set victory, but she ultimately prevailed, 6-4, 6-7, 6-2.
The WITC piggybacked on the US Open to take the notion of equal prize money even further. A total purse of $135,000 included a whopping first prize of $40,000, which would go to the best player–of either gender. The eight-player field, rounded out by Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Rod Laver, John Newcombe, and Stan Smith, competed in singles, doubles, and mixed, fighting for points that would determine the ultimate winner.
While the exhibition was a marketing boon for the new Hilton Head Racquet Club at Shipyard Plantation, the serious financial backing came from television. ABC would broadcast the matches in April and May 1974, with Ford Motors as the lead sponsor. Few newspapers covered the event as it happened–perhaps they were encouraged not to–so viewers could enjoy the matches as if they were live.
Court, on the other hand, left little in doubt. She simply couldn’t stop winning. She teamed with Goolagong for the doubles trophy and with Newcombe for the mixed doubles crown over the duo of King and Ashe. Laver edged out Smith for the men’s title. Margaret was the only undefeated competitor–man or woman–at the event.
With another mega-prize in her pocket, Court finally–finally–took a few days off.
Evert and Goolagong, on the other hand, were soon shuttling to their next tournament. They were separated by fewer than 100 points in the year-long Grand Prix race, and neither one wanted to ease the pace. As they concluded their business in Hilton Head, the Four Roses Classic in nearby Charlotte was already underway. Though both women got first-round byes, Evonne would play her first match on Wednesday.
Billie Jean, just nine days away from her ballyhooed match against Bobby Riggs, was moving even faster. Her name was in the draw at the Missouri Coca-Cola Women’s Pro International in St. Louis, with a scheduled first-rounder on Wednesday. On September 11th, it wasn’t clear if she’d be up for any of it. The heat had run her down in New York, and she felt even worse after fulfilling her duties at the WITC. She feared it was a return of the hypoglycemia that had sidelined her a few years earlier. Her doctor suspected it was a more pedestrian case of the flu.
Either way, the tennis world held its breath. Would King show up in Houston? Was the purported illness just a hustle to psych out Riggs? If Hilton Head was any indication, she’d find a way to play. Apart from everything else, there was $100,000 at stake. The sport had yet to produce the superstar who would stay home with that kind of money on the line.
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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.
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