This article argues that Billie Jean King is the greatest tennis player of all time. It highlights her impact on the sport, her achievements, and her influence beyond the court.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Our writers ranked their top 10 greatest athlete s of all time, and we asked some to write about their favourites. Read the whole series and see the top 50.At 81 years old, you’ll still find Billie Jean King on the tennis court, in the royal box at Wimbledon, or at the tennis centre in Flushing Meadows that hosts the US Open every year and was renamed after her in 2006.
After all these years, King is still obsessed, outspoken and opportunistic – that’s why she’s the greatest of them all. The world was a different place when King – then Billie Jean Moffitt – first picked up a tennis racquet in Long Beach, California in 1954. It was a world where an 11-year-old King was told she couldn’t be in a tournament photo because she wasn’t wearing a skirt. A world where there was no such thing as a professional tennis circuit for women, and a world where, when prizemoney was first handed out in 1968, women would often pay their own way to tournaments to earn a third of the winnings compared to their male counterparts.So often in tennis, we measure success by the number of grand slam titles a player has won, and that’s because it’s bloody difficult to do. But King’s success and influence is so much more than trophies and titles. If we compare King with her contemporaries, she’s a little further down the list when it comes to grand slam singles titles, but with a still extremely impressive 12 to her name. Novak Djokovic will begin 2025 at the Australian Open on the hunt for his 25th singles title. Rafael Nadal recently retired with 22 titles to his name, and Roger Federer with 20 – that’s the “big three” for you. And, we’ve seen equal success and dominance in the women’s game in the open era (the current professional era from 1968 onwards).To date, Steffi Graf is still the only tennis player, male or female, to have completed the golden slam – winning all four grand slams and Olympic gold – in a calendar yea
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