"Her presence and politics raised the game."
 | By Indrani Sen Culture Editor, Opinion |
At the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York on Monday evening, moments after Serena Williams won her first-round match of the U.S. Open, Billie Jean King herself took to the microphone. |
The tennis legend was there to pay tribute as Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time, bids farewell to professional tennis. "You are fearless," King told Williams, praising her for inspiring women "to use our voices, to dream big." "Thank you for sharing your journey with every single one of us," she said. "We love you. God bless you. And guess what. You're just beginning!" |
King can attest to the value of playing the long game, as she explained in a guest essay we published that day. In the 1960s, King told my colleague Susannah Meadows, women's sports were an afterthought, and even the best female tennis players made just $14 a day — a far cry from Williams's $260 million net worth, as estimated by Forbes. |
That's why, King said, she and a group of other star players created a professional tennis tour for women in 1970 and the Women's Tennis Association in 1973: |
We wanted to make it possible that any girl in the world who was good enough would have a place to compete — not just play, compete. We wanted to be appreciated for our accomplishments, not only our looks. And we wanted to be able to make a living playing tennis. And so Serena is living our dream. When I watch her, I think, "Thank you, God." |
In her essay, King spoke with admiration and great warmth about Williams and her sister, Venus Williams, whom she met when they were child prodigies — 6- and 7-year-olds who stood out from the crowd of 1,200 kids at a tennis clinic King held in 1988 near their home in Compton, Calif. "You could tell they were really in it," she recalled. "They had amazing concentration." |
It was poignant to watch King take the mic in a tennis complex named after her to toast a woman she has watched carry the struggle for equality forward for almost four decades. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously proclaimed. It's sometimes difficult these days to feel the truth of that statement — but the trajectory of these two remarkable women's lives is a powerful illustration of it. |
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