Billie Jean King interview: Time to change Wimbledon traditions that ‘drive me nuts’
Billie Jean King thinks Wimbledon’s dress code is harming the growth of her sport - Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph
From the top floor of a London hotel, Billie Jean King scans the city skyline through her fuchsia spectacles with the air of a businesswoman perfecting a sales pitch.
While most octogenarians are doing crosswords or busying themselves with a spot of gardening, King, who turns 82 in November and has spent her life serving up answers to advance women’s sport, is on a never-ending mission to exercise her influence.
She has just finished delivering a speech about leadership – sharing a stage with one of the world’s most powerful women, Melinda French Gates, at the Power of Women’s Sports Summit – days out from her favourite time of the year: Wimbledon.
Ever since powering to her maiden Wimbledon title in the doubles as a 17-year-old in 1961 – the first of 20 titles she won at SW19 across singles and doubles – King has returned every summer to the All England Club. She continues to be captivated by its eye-catching floral displays and meticulously mowed lawns, which rekindle happy memories of her time as a serial winner on its hallowed grass courts.
But there is one thing about the place that she resents: Wimbledon whites. In an age where sports are jostling to stand out in a saturated marketplace, King believes the clothing rule, officially implemented two years after she landed that doubles title as a teenager and dictates that players must wear predominantly white kit, was a “total mistake”.
History of Wimbledon’s all-white dress code
King herself wore dresses featuring blue and pink embroidery as well as intricate patterns during her playing days at Wimbledon but the rule became more restrictive in the mid-Nineties, which she believes makes it harder for viewers to distinguish between players.
King played at Wimbledon before embellishments on a basic white kit were outlawed - Allsport/Getty Images/BOB MARTIN
“There’s a match that comes on, you sit down, and you look – let’s say it’s television – who’s who? Tennis people say: ‘Well, the mark is next to their name’ [to indicate who is serving]. I shouldn’t have to look at a mark, I shouldn’t have to look at anything. I should know [who’s who]. My sport drives me nuts,” she sighs, burying her head in her hands.
After momentarily being stunned into silence, I meekly point out that whites are what make Wimbledon quintessentially British. It is a sporting institution that has – and always will be – draped in tradition. “But they shouldn’t have the same uniforms on. They both have white on,” retorts King. “You can change tradition.”
It is a mantra that King has embodied as a lifelong campaigner for social justice and equality. She was instrumental in pushing for equal prize money for men and women at the US Open in 1973 – the same year her “Battle of the Sexes” victory over Bobby Riggs would irreversibly shift public perceptions of women’s athleticism.
Despite having the foresight to spread her influence across different sports spheres, it is tennis where King’s status as a visionary shines through. One of her latest ideas is for players to be assigned numbers and have names on their kit. “I’d have merch with their names on the back so they’d make money, the tournament makes money, everybody makes money,” she says. “We’re losing out on millions and millions because of that. Numbers are really important! Kids love numbers and they can retire numbers – like a Federer. It’s so obvious. Take what other sports are doing and what people like from other sports.”
King would like to see names and numbers on the back of players’ shirts on tour to create a market for replica merchandise - Eddie Mulholland For The Telegraph
Ever since she started owning tennis tournaments with her former husband, Larry King, her continued advocacy of women’s sport has exploded into a booming portfolio that includes teams from baseball, basketball and soccer. In 2020, she was part of a star-studded list of celebrity names who bought a stake in Angel City FC in the United States’ National Women’s Soccer League. Last September, it sold for $250 million (£182 million), making history as the most valuable football club ever in women’s sport. More recently, King was a major financial backer in a new, professional Women’s Ice Hockey League, which drew record-breaking audiences and viewership in its inaugural season.
Nowadays, King is all too happy that others have joined the party in dipping into their pockets to help level the playing field. Last month, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian pledged to make Chelsea women a “billion-dollar franchise” after buying a stake in the Women’s Super League club, while Michele Kang, the American tech pioneer, has invested more than $85 million (£67 million) into women’s sports projects. The owner of three women’s football clubs – Washington Spirit, Lyon and London City Lionesses – Kang last year donated $4 million (£2.9 million) to the USA Rugby women’s sevens programme after seeing the impact of social media phenomenon Ilona Maher. “I’ve waited my whole life to see people believing in the investment of women’s sport,” says King, clapping her hands together. “That we matter. It’s great.”
Never one simply to cheer-lead, King insists it is impossible to champion women’s sport – the global revenues of which Deloitte predicts will surpass £1.82 billion this year – without recognising its commercial viability. “Women athletes sometimes say: ‘We deserve more. We deserve this.’ I’m like, ‘Did they make money this year?’ If they haven’t, why do you think you deserve more? I want athletes to know the business side of it. When an athlete asks me: ‘What do I do?’ I say: ‘Understand the business you’re in. If the budget isn’t going well, guess where my prize money is going to go? Back into the budget.’ That’s really understanding the business.”
Half an hour in King’s company is an intense experience. Other than sport, there is no linear thread to our conversation, which meanders from the PE diet British schoolchildren are fed during summer (“You have rounders – do you pitch underarm for that?”) to the biweekly hit-about she has with her wife and business partner, Ilana Kloss, to stay in shape, and how the Premier League is wallowing in collective financial debt (£3.6 billion being the last reported figure). King cracks a wry smile at the latter. “Men’s sports lose money too, but people never talk about the men,” she says.
Even at the age of 81 King still plays tennis with her wife, Ilana Kloss, twice a week to stay in shape - Getty Images/Robert Prange
Tennis is one of a number of sports that has deepened its ties with Saudi Arabia, with the sport last year hosting the WTA Finals in Riyadh. Is the country’s harsh stance on LGBTQ+ rights not a profound mismatch with her own moral compass? “I know things don’t change without engagement,” says King, who was the first prominent female athlete to be publicly outed as gay in 1981 and subsequently lost $2 million-worth of endorsement deals.
“You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I have a feeling it’s going to help long term. In the short term, it probably doesn’t feel like it. It’s the girls who watched it [the WTA Finals]. They had some mothers and girls there of colour and they started getting excited about it. You never know how one person is going to impact another person’s life. Muhammad Ali and I used to talk about this a lot. If you don’t engage, things will stay the same.”
That engagement has culminated in a landmark maternity policy, which is being bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and includes fertility grants for players to freeze their eggs and covers the top 150 players in the world. Again, King believes opportunity trumps optics. “I would have frozen my eggs for sure,” says King, whose well-publicised abortion in 1971 led her to becoming a fierce advocate for women’s reproductive rights. “But it costs money. If I was a young woman and had the money I would have got my eggs frozen by the time I was 30, knowing what we know now. But we didn’t know any of this.”
Tennis’ flagship women’s team competition – the Billie Jean King Cup – stages its finals in Shenzhen, China, this September, starting a three-year association with the country that is yet to provide answers over the disappearance of Peng Shuai. The Chinese tennis player accused a high-ranking government official of sexual assault in 2021 before vanishing from public life, instigating international concern and leading the WTA to boycott the country. She later said there had been a “huge misunderstanding”, although this was in a highly controlled interview, and the WTA said a return to China would not be considered until the request for a private meeting with her had been met.
After the disappearance of Peng Shuai, King approved of the WTA’s decision to withdraw from China but now says she regrets it and believes engagement is more important - PA/Zac Goodwin
At the time, King hailed the organisation she founded as being on “the right side of history” but the opportunity to take the sport to a country with the second-largest tennis-playing population globally was too good to pass up – WTA backpedalled and announced its return to China in April 2023. King harbours her own regrets over the situation. “The fact we’re taking tennis back to China is important,” she says. “I’m very big on engagement and building bridges. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m sorry we left China. I thought we should have stayed.”
Engagement remains high on King’s agenda when discussing one of sport’s most divisive topics: transgender women in sport. Ever the advocate for inclusion, she believes the debate requires less toxicity and more empathy. “The whole thing’s a nightmare,” she says. “I don’t think people have any idea of how hard it is for trans people. Just listen to their stories. Listen – not tell them. Everyone is unique. Make them feel included because you really don’t know. With every person I meet, I try to start with a blank. Ask questions. If I weren’t doing this interview with you, I’d be bugging you with a lot of questions.”
And with that, King is whisked away to her next engagement. A day trip to Wimbledon on a London Routemaster bus beckons, and with it another trip down memory lane.
Billie Jean King was speaking at the Power of Women’s Sports Summit, presented by e.l.f. The Billie Jean King Cup finals take place in Shenzhen in September. For more information, see billiejeankingcup.com
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