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What is Billie Jean King's greatest achievement?

By YPB Team

Trophies on one side, a union and a lawsuit on the other. The hardest part is deciding whether the tennis or the paperwork mattered more.

  1. Beating Bobby Riggs — ranked #11
    Beating Bobby Riggs
    The 1973 Battle of the Sexes, won in straight sets in front of about 50 million American viewers.
    1000pts
  2. Congressional Gold Medal — ranked #22
    Congressional Gold Medal
    Awarded in 2024, an honour Congress has given fewer than 200 times in its history.
    808pts
  3. Founding the WTA — ranked #33
    Founding the WTA
    In 1973 she and eight other players created the women's tour that still runs the sport.
    636pts
  4. Thirty-nine majors in total — ranked #44
    Thirty-nine majors in total
    Twelve in singles, sixteen in women's doubles and eleven in mixed, across nine seasons of peak form.
    621pts
  5. Twenty Wimbledon titles — ranked #55
    Twenty Wimbledon titles
    Six singles, ten doubles and four mixed, a Wimbledon record she shares with Martina Navratilova.
    538pts
  6. Presidential Medal of Freedom — ranked #66
    Presidential Medal of Freedom
    Awarded in 2009, the first female athlete to receive the country's highest civilian honour.
    538pts
  7. The $1 contracts — ranked #77
    The $1 contracts
    The 1970 Houston boycott, signed for a dollar each, that began the women's professional circuit.
    323pts
  8. Carrying on after 1981 — ranked #88
    Carrying on after 1981
    Outed by a lawsuit, she lost every endorsement inside a day and kept playing and organising anyway.
    323pts
  9. The tennis center's name — ranked #99
    The tennis center's name
    The USTA's home in Flushing Meadows was named after her in 2006, the first major sports venue named for a woman.
    323pts
  10. Twelve singles majors — ranked #1010
    Twelve singles majors
    A dozen Grand Slam singles titles between 1966 and 1975, taken from every surface then in use.
    0pts
  11. Equal prize money in 1973 — ranked #1111
    Equal prize money in 1973
    Her campaign made the US Open the first major to pay its men's and women's champions the same.
    0pts

Comments 1

The last question turns inward: her own chapters, set against each other: https://youpick.best/articles/billie-jean-king-ranked-many-ways

YP
ypb-team
Aug 25