Billy Jean-King vs
Serena Williams: The Women Who Gave Sport and Tennis a New Identity
Williams on the other hand was and still is most successful
black female tennis player to have played the sport. She changed the world of
race and cultural identity through her success on the court. What stood out was her ability to consistently
dominate tennis matches by using both her physical and mental strength. Her
groundstrokes were huge especially the forehand which was so lethal that her
opponents found it difficult to bring the tennis balls back into the court as
she was the one who always used to dictate most of the rallies.
Billy Jean-King on the other hand was playing in a far more
competitive era of the women’s game with the likes of Christina Evert. She
began her career playing against the men as all the singles matches were men
against women. Her best victory was against Bobby Riggs in 1973 just before she
organised the WTA (women’s tennis association), to allow more women to get
involved in tennis and to make them into professional and top-class tennis
players.
Tennis is one of the sports in which women have generally had
more success in. Williams has been the dominator in terms of achieving success
over the past 18 years. She has a total of 23 grand slam singles titles plus
two Olympic gold medals as opposed to Billy Jean King who had won 39 grand
slams. King was more successful in the women’s doubles where she won 16 Grand
slam titles as opposed to Serena who won 14 along with her sister Venus. So,
you can see clearly that Serena is a better singles player than King was.
Both players grew up in different backgrounds. King was brought
up in an active and sporting family where her mother was a swimmer and her
brother was a baseball player. Although King did not have any connection with
tennis through her family, she started playing on free public courts in Long
Beach, California. Serena’s family was and is like a mini tennis club where her
elder sister Venus had won 7 grand slam singles titles. Richard their father had
a huge impact on their success. He started coaching both sisters from when
Serena was just 3 years old. It seemed like Serena was the one who benefitted
the most from his coaching tactics as she always had the upper hand on her
sister Venus in terms of how their careers have progressed over the last 15
years
It would have been interesting to see whether Serena would
still be able to dominate tennis, had she played in the Billie Jean-king era when
the women’s game was much more competitive with the likes of Christine Evert. Although
she lost in the 2016 Australian Open final to Germany’s Angelique Kerber, it
hasn’t made that much of an impact on herself becoming the top ranked player in
the world.
In 1966, King was the top ranked player in the world. She
had a win/loss record of 695-155 in singles and a record of 87-37 in doubles.
Williams on the other hand has a win/loss record of 783-130 in singles and
185-31 in doubles. Although both players
have won all four grand slams, Serena Williams is the 5th female to
do it in a calendar year behind Steffi Graf, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova,
Margaret Court and Maria Sharapova.
Billy Jean-King and Serena Williams have been terrific ambassadors
of both tennis and world sport, especially in the women’s game. These two women
have certainly changed the world of tennis and the advocacy of feminism in
sport.
