Barely two weeks after winning a title in Phoenix and pronouncing her 1973 season over, just a few days after skipping the Virginia Slims Championships in Boca Raton, Billie Jean King was back on a tennis court. The nine-player Virginia Slims of Hawaii–sponsored by the cigarette makers though not part of the main tour–was little more than an exhibition.
Except, as Billie Jean had recently shown, exhibition tennis could be a big deal. More than 1,600 fans came out to a high school gymnasium in Honolulu to watch King take on Pat Bostrom in her opening match on October 23rd.
Skipping the tour championships in favor of a lesser event smacked of a career in transition, and Madame Superstar didn’t deny it. She called the Battle of the Sexes “sort of an end.”
“I’m going to play less tournament tennis,” she told a newsman in Hawaii. “I’m heavily involved in business now, and I think it’s fascinating.” She had recently launched a new magazine, which would begin publication the following year as womenSports, and she intended to give her all to the new Philadelphia franchise of World Team Tennis.
“The weakness in the women’s movement has been too much intellectualizing, too much talk,” King said, repeating a familiar refrain. “I feel we should concentrate on real issues, get down to practical matters … do things.” No one would ever accuse Billie Jean of failing to walk the walk: Few athletes have ever pursued such a broad set of ambitions.
First, though, she had a tennis match to win. Bostrom was no pushover, on the court or off. At the University of Washington, she had sued for the right to try out for the men’s team–and won. In 1972, playing on the women’s squad, she picked up a conference title. She was still new to the tour, but had picked up wins at both the French and Wimbledon.
King shouldn’t have been surprised, then, when she found herself playing from behind. Bostrom won four games in a row to take a 5-3 lead in the first set, then dissected Billie Jean’s serve to reach 0-40: triple set point. That was as close as she would get.
The veteran won five straight points to avert the crisis and barely put a foot wrong the rest of the way. Bostrom not only failed to convert her set points; she didn’t win another game. A local reporter summarized the King attack: “too many strokes, too much power, too much guile.” The top seed took the match, 7-5, 6-0.
“I didn’t come here to lose,” King said. Her goals had shifted, but some things would never change.
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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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