Billie Jean King Facts
Billie Jean King Facts
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Interesting Billie Jean King Facts: |
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Billie Jean's younger brother, Randy Moffit, played baseball in the Major Leagues for several different teams over a twelve year span in the 1970s and early 1980s. |
Billie Jean began playing tennis at the age of eleven. |
She began competing professionally in 1959 as a teenager. |
Billie Jean won her first tournament in 1960 at the Philadelphia and District Grass Court Championships. |
She was the first woman to defeat a top seed in the first match at Wimbledon in 1962. |
King won her first "Grand Slam" title in 1966 at Wimbledon |
King was named the Associated Press' "Female Athlete of the Year" for 1967. |
She won all four Grand Slam titles in 1970 |
In 1972, Billie Jean became the first woman and first tennis player to be named the Sports Illustrated sportsman of the year. |
On September 20, 1973, at the age of twenty-nine, King defeated fifty-five-year-old professional tennis legend Bobby Riggs in three straight sets in the "Battle of the Sexes II" at the Houston Astrodome. |
King became the first female athlete to win over $100,000 in prize money in 1971. |
In a 1971 issue of Ms., it was revealed that King hand an abortion. |
She was instrumental in establishing a women's only professional tennis tour in the 1970s. |
King continuously campaigned for gender equality in tennis, especially regarding pay and prize purses. |
She became the first president of the Women's Tennis Association in 1973. |
By the time she retired from playing tennis full-time professionally in 1983, King claimed thirty-nine Grand Slam titles, twelve in singles, sixteen in women's doubles, and eleven in mixed doubles. |
Since the 1970s, King has been an outspoken advocate of gay and lesbian rights issues and has received numerous awards as a result. |
Although a professional athlete and advocate of healthy living, King supported cigarette bran Virginia Slims' sponsorship of women's tennis and later served on the corporate board of its parent company, Philip Morris. |
Billie Jean has appeared as herself in several cameos in film and television since the 1970s. |
King published the book Pressure is a Privilege: Lessons I've Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes in 2008. |
In the 2010s, King participated in the Women's Sport Foundation and the Elton John AIDs Foundation by speaking at various events. |
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