Friday September 22, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 38 |
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Monday, Oct 06, 2008
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Kings of the Court: Martina Navratilova and Billy Jean King |
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| Kings of the Court: Martina Navratilova and Billy Jean King | ||
| by Simon Andrew
- Special to the SGN
At the 2006 US Open Tennis Championships, amidst the hoopla and fanfare of Andre Agassi's retirement from tennis and Serena Williams return to the sport, comes the true story of this year's tournament. The triumph of two women who are the most important figures in the history of women's tennis, and arguably that of sport itself - Martina Navratilova and Billy Jean King. This past week, less than one month from her fiftieth birthday, Martina Navratilova, with her doubles partner Bob Bryan, advanced to the finals of the US Open mixed doubles event. They won the championship in straight sets, incredible considering that she is eligible for the Seniors events but chooses to play against competition often less than half her age. Martina has won a record 167 career singles titles and 41 Grand Slam doubles titles, more than any man or woman in the history of the sport. This was Martina's final event in a long, often controversial, and storied career wherein she fought for every ounce of the great respect she now commands. How fitting that she leaves the sport as she came in, a surprising and unexpected champion. At the beginning of this year's Open, Billy Jean King was given one of the highest honors ever bestowed upon a woman with the naming of our entire national tennis facility in Flushing Meadow, New York, "The USTA Billy Jean King National Tennis Center." King helped to promote the first professional women's tour, and was the first President of the Women's Tennis Association. Billy Jean is almost single-handedly responsible for two of the most important advances in the history of women's sports - equity of pay, and the passage of Title IX legislation by Congress, which mandates equal time in sports education for girls and equal expenditures for collegiate women's sports programs. Billy Jean has been a relentless activist throughout her life, and remains so to this day. Because of the example of women like King and Navratilova, we now have players like #1 rated Amelie Mauresmo of France, who has been unabashedly "out" from the very beginning. Mauresmo has been a quality player for a long time, but in the past year has broken through, winning two of the four Grand Slam events - the Australian Open and Wimbledon - and making it through to the finals of the French Open and semi-finals of the US Open. For more information about Queer tennis and other Queer sports leagues in our area, visit www.teamseattle.org. |
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International Readers |
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