22 November: Billie Jean King, Tennis Champion

Athlete
b. November 22, 1943

I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.

Life Magazine named Billie Jean King one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century." A tennis champion and an outspoken advocate for gender equality in sports, King has become an icon and legend for her contributions to the advancement of women's sports.

Despite her mother's attempts to steer her towards more feminine pursuits, King demonstrated exceptional aptitude in sports at a young age. She purchased her first tennis racket at the age of 12. She recalls thinking during her first tennis lesson, "I knew I'd found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."

In 1961, at age 17, King won her first grand slam title at Wimbledon in the women's doubles tournament. She became known for her aggressive style and personality. In 1966, she won her first of 12 Grand Slam singles titles.

An outspoken advocate against sexism in sports, King hoped "to use sports for social change." She campaigned for equal prize awards for male and female tennis players after receiving $15,000 less in prize money than her male counterpart in the 1972 U.S. Open. King threatened to boycott the 1973 tournament. The following year, the U.S. Open became the first major tournament to award equal prize money to male and female champions.

In 1973, King became the first woman to defeat a former male Wimbledon Champion in "The Battle of the Sexes." The Women's Tennis Association named King its first president that same year. In 1974, King co-founded WomenSports Magazine and began the Women's Sports Foundation.

King struggled to come to terms with her sexuality. During her 22-year marriage she had an intimate affair with her assistant, Marilyn Barnett. Pressured by the threat of losing her career, King remained in the closet until 1981, when Barnett sued her for palimony. Though King won the lawsuit, her court battle left her financially and emotionally drained. Despite calling the affair a "mistake," King lost almost all of her commercial sponsors.

King publicly came out in 1988. Since then, she has helped further the visibility and inclusion of the GLBT community. She currently serves on the Board of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and National AIDS Fund

Bibliography
Lannin, Joanne. Billie Jean King : Tennis Trailblazer. Lerner Publications. 1999
Schwartz, Larry. “Billie Jean Won for All Women.” ESPN. June 29, 2007
Stanley. Alessandra. “The Legacy of Billie Jean King: An Athlete Who Demanded Equal Pay.” New York Times. April 26, 2006. June 29, 2007

Selected Works
We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Womens Tennis (1988)

18 October:Martina Navratilova, Tennis Champion

b. October 18, 1956

Martina Navratilova has won 168 singles tennis titles, more than any other tennis player in history, male or female. She has won 58 Grand Slam tournaments, including a record nine Wimbledon singles titles.

"The moment I stepped onto that crunchy red clay, felt the grit under my sneakers, felt the joy of smacking a ball over the net, I knew I was in the right place."

Navratilova knew from an early age that she wanted to be a tennis player. At 16, she turned pro and two years later, she defected from her native Czechoslovakia to the United States. In 1981 she became an American citizen.

Navratilova played a powerful serve-and-volley style of tennis the women's game had not seen before. She pioneered attention to diet and cross-training for physical conditioning. Navratilova's friend and former on-court rival Chris Evert said, "Martina revolutionized the game by her superb athleticism and aggressiveness, not to mention her outspokenness and her candor. She brought athleticism to a whole new level with her training techniques . . . . She had everything down to a science, including her diet, and that was an inspiration to me."

In 1981, Navratilova became the first athletic superstar to announce her sexual orientation. While her candor cost her millions in endorsement opportunities, her tournament winnings alone in 1982 made her the first female athlete to earn more than one million dollars in a year.

Navratilova retired from women's singles tennis in 1994, but continued as a mixed doubles player until 2006, winning a total of 175 doubles titles in her career. She has earned a reputation as an advocate of gay rights, the environment, animal welfare, and women's issues. She spoke at the 1993 March on Washington and filed a lawsuit against the enactment Colorado's Amendment 2, which banned legal protection for lesbians and gays in housing and employment.

TV analyst Bud Collins said, "Martina is probably the most daring player in the history of the game. She dared to play a style antithetical to her heritage without worrying about making a fool of herself. She dared to remake herself physically, setting new horizons for women in sports. And she dared to live her life as she chose, without worrying what other people thought of her."

Bibliography:

• Blue, Adrianne. Martina: The Lives and Times of Martina Navratilova. Carol Publishing Company, 2005.
  
• Howard, Johnette. The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova. Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship. Broadway (reprint), 2005.
  
• Kettmann, Steve. "Brilliant Careers Profile: Martina Navratilova," Salon.com.

Selected works by Martina Navratilova:

• Martina. Knopf, 1985.

Serena Repeats As Australian Open Champion

It took her three sets, twelve aces, 32 winners and two hours and seven minutes of high quality tennis, but Little Sis outlasted Justine Henin 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 to complete a very successful business trip to Melbourne to defend her Australian Open championship.

Serena captured her fifth Australian Open title to add to the 2010 doubles title she won with Big Sis. It is Serena's 12th Grand Slam title, tying her with Billie Jean King for sixth place on the all time women's Grand Slam champions list.

The fifth Australian open title is the most by any woman in the Open Tennis Era since 1968, surpassing the four held by Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.

The next targets on the all time women's Grand Slam champions list are Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova with 18 majors each.

Margaret Court is the all time women's Grand Slam title holder with 24, and has won the Australian Open 11 times. She was in attendance along with Billie Jean King to be honored on the 40th anniversary year of her 1970 Grand Slam.

But Henin made Little Sis fight for it. At one point in the match she won 15 straight points to close out the second set, even the match and take a 1-0 lead in the deciding third set.

But Little Sis eventually stepped up her game to another level and took a 3-2 lead in the third set she never relinquished. She's also the first woman to repeat as champion since Jennifer Capriati won back to back Australian Opens in 2001-2002.

Now if Serena can figure out how to win some French Opens, everything will be copacetic.

One Down,Three to Go-Williams Sisters Win 2010 Aussie Doubles

My favorite tennis playing sisters took three our of the four Grand Slam doubles titles they entered in 2009, with only the French Open eluding their grasp.

They began their quest to get that elusive doubles Grand Slam by beating the world number one ranked doubles team in Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Liezel Huber of the US 6-4 6-3 to successfully defend their Australian Open championship.

The Williams sisters won their first Australian Open doubles crown in 2001 and did so again in 2003 and last year. They have won 11 Grand Slam doubles titles over their careers.

Serena is seeking her 12 individual Grand slam title when she meets the unretired Justine Henin in a bid to do something she's never done in her career: Win an Australian Open singles title in an even numbered year.

Next Grand Slam for the Williams sisters is the French Open

2010 Australian Open-Williams Sisters In Third Round

The professional tennis tour kicks off with the first Grand Slam of the season, the Australian Open. The 2010 edition began play in Melbourne on January 18, and my favorite tennis playing sisters are still in it to win it.

The Williams sisters are on the same side of the Women's singles draw and would meet in the semifinals if they keep kicking butt and taking names.

While the rest of the tennis world is buzzing over the return of Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, with some peeps hoping they start slowing down the Williams sisters Grand Slam tournaments juggernaut, defending Australian Open singles champ Serena and big sis Venus served notice that they are still women to be reckoned with.

Serena won her opening match of the tournament over Poland's Urszula Radwanska 6-2, 6-1 and only took an hour and 13 minutes to do it.

In her second round match versus Czech Petra Kvitova she took an hour and seven minutes to advance to the third round in a 6-2, 6-1 straight set victory.

Little Sis faces the woman who eliminated Big Sis from last year's Australian open tournament, Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro.

Speaking of Big Sis, Venus began her singles tournament play by quickly overpowering Czech Lucie Safarova in a straight set 6-2, 6-2 win.

Her second round match against Austrian Sybille Bammer was more of a struggle, but she prevailed 6-2,7-5 to advance to the third round against Aussie homegirl Casey Dellacqua.

The sisters are playing doubles in this 2010 Australian Open and are the defending Women's doubles champs. They won three of the four Grand Slam doubles titles during the 2009 season with only the French Open eluding them.

They opened defense of their Women's doubles title with a 6-1, 6-1 straight set victory over Australia's Sophie Ferguson and Jessica Moore. They face Ioana Olaru of Romania and Ukraine's Olga Savchuk in their second round doubles match.

The tournament concludes on January 31, and here's hoping my fave tennis playing sisters add a few more Grand Slam titles to their trophy cases this season.

Billie Jean King, Tennis Champion

Athlete
b. November 22, 1943

I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.

Life Magazine named Billie Jean King one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century." A tennis champion and an outspoken advocate for gender equality in sports, King has become an icon and legend for her contributions to the advancement of women's sports.

Despite her mother's attempts to steer her towards more feminine pursuits, King demonstrated exceptional aptitude in sports at a young age. She purchased her first tennis racket at the age of 12. She recalls thinking during her first tennis lesson, "I knew I'd found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."

In 1961, at age 17, King won her first grand slam title at Wimbledon in the women's doubles tournament. She became known for her aggressive style and personality. In 1966, she won her first of 12 Grand Slam singles titles.

An outspoken advocate against sexism in sports, King hoped "to use sports for social change." She campaigned for equal prize awards for male and female tennis players after receiving $15,000 less in prize money than her male counterpart in the 1972 U.S. Open. King threatened to boycott the 1973 tournament. The following year, the U.S. Open became the first major tournament to award equal prize money to male and female champions.

In 1973, King became the first woman to defeat a former male Wimbledon Champion in "The Battle of the Sexes." The Women's Tennis Association named King its first president that same year. In 1974, King co-founded WomenSports Magazine and began the Women's Sports Foundation.

King struggled to come to terms with her sexuality. During her 22-year marriage she had an intimate affair with her assistant, Marilyn Barnett. Pressured by the threat of losing her career, King remained in the closet until 1981, when Barnett sued her for palimony. Though King won the lawsuit, her court battle left her financially and emotionally drained. Despite calling the affair a "mistake," King lost almost all of her commercial sponsors.

King publicly came out in 1988. Since then, she has helped further the visibility and inclusion of the GLBT community. She currently serves on the Board of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and National AIDS Fund

Bibliography
Lannin, Joanne. Billie Jean King : Tennis Trailblazer. Lerner Publications. 1999
Schwartz, Larry. “Billie Jean Won for All Women.” ESPN. June 29, 2007
Stanley. Alessandra. “The Legacy of Billie Jean King: An Athlete Who Demanded Equal Pay.” New York Times. April 26, 2006. June 29, 2007

Selected Works
We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Womens Tennis (1988)

Serena Caps Year With WTA Championships Win

It's becoming a recurring theme lately for the Williams sisters. Little Sis beats Big Sis.

This time it was for the WTA Championship in Doha, Qatar.

Serena met her older sister for the second time in this tournament and won in straight sets 6-2, 7-6 (4) in the season-ending WTA Championship final.

"It feels great," said Serena, "I totally didn't expect to come here and win."

Both sisters were nursing injuries while getting to the final in different ways. Serena went unbeaten in the tournament and only dropped one set while doing so to Big Sis.

Despite losing two round robin matches and being extended to three sets in all of them, defending champ Venus still made it to the final of this tournament.

"It was the end of the season, so I have no complaints," Venus said when questioned about her fitness level. "You have to show up and play no matter what. So that had nothing to do with it."

It was Serena's fourth straight victory over Venus and pushed her all time record in their head yo head matchups to 13-10. It was also not only Serena's first win in a non-Grand Slam tournament this season, it was her first win in the WTA Championships since 2001.

"I haven't won a tournament that wasn't a Grand Slam in a while, so that was even more exciting," she said. "My losing streak in (other) tournaments in over."

That's bad news for the rest of the women's tennis playing world. But y'all have two months to rest up before the 2010 Australian Open starts Down Under.

And so do the Williams sisters.

Sister-Sister Duel In Doha

This time it's for the title.

The top eight women's tennis players in the world have been in Doha, Qatar this week playing in the WTA Championships.

The format of this tournament split the eight women into two groups, with everyone in the Maroon and White groups playing each other in a round robin format. Top two in each group met in the Saturday semis to determine who played in the championship match today.

When all was said and done, my favorite tennis playing sisters were the last ones standing and will face off for the WTA Championship.

The Williams sisters were placed in the same Maroon group and faced each other in round robin play Wednesday. Little Sis had to work to beat Big Sis, 5-7 6-4 7-6(4) and raise her all time record against Venus to 12-10.

In the semis Serena needed only 45 minutes in her semifinal as she took the first set from Caroline Wozniacki before she retired due to abdominal strain two games into the second set.

Venus on the other hand outlasted Jelena Jankovic 5-7 6-3 6-4 in her semifinal match which took 2 hours and 34 minutes to play.

So once again the Williams sisters are playing each other in the championship match of a tournament. What's also cool is that no matter what happens today, Serena will finish the year ranked Number one in the world.

So my prediction for today's match? Someone with the last name of Williams will win it.

Little Sis Will End Year Atop World Tennis Rankings

For the first time since 2002 the final world tennis rankings will reflect what the whole planet already knows:

Serena Williams is the best women's tennis player in the world.

This elite tournament in Doha, Qatar matches up the top eight players in the world. Little Sis entered this $4.5 million season ending WTA Championships event trailing Safina by 155 ratings points.

The players are divided into two groups, the Maroon and White ones, with the top two from each group advancing to the semifinals after playing a round robin schedule. In addition, each victory in this tournament is worth 230 points.

After Serena dispatched Svetlana Kuznetsova in her opening Maroon Group match 7-6, 7-5, Safina entered her White Group match against Jelena Jankovic trailing by 75 points. After stepping onto the court and earning 70 ranking points for doing so, Safina was forced to retire two games into the mach due to a back injury.

Unfortunately defending champ Big Sis lost her Maroon group match to Elena Dementieva 6-3, 6-7, 2-6. The win gives Dementieva a share of the Maroon Group lead with Little Sis.

Even if Serena doesn't win any more matches, she will finish the year ranked Number one. Then she and Big Sis will get a well deserved break until January 18-31, 2010.

What are those dates, you ask? The scheduled dates for the first Grand Slam event of the 2010 tennis season, the Australian Open.

Martina Navratilova, Tennis Champion

b. October 18, 1956

Martina Navratilova has won 168 singles tennis titles, more than any other tennis player in history, male or female. She has won 58 Grand Slam tournaments, including a record nine Wimbledon singles titles.

"The moment I stepped onto that crunchy red clay, felt the grit under my sneakers, felt the joy of smacking a ball over the net, I knew I was in the right place."

Navratilova knew from an early age that she wanted to be a tennis player. At 16, she turned pro and two years later, she defected from her native Czechoslovakia to the United States. In 1981 she became an American citizen.

Navratilova played a powerful serve-and-volley style of tennis the women's game had not seen before. She pioneered attention to diet and cross-training for physical conditioning. Navratilova's friend and former on-court rival Chris Evert said, "Martina revolutionized the game by her superb athleticism and aggressiveness, not to mention her outspokenness and her candor. She brought athleticism to a whole new level with her training techniques . . . . She had everything down to a science, including her diet, and that was an inspiration to me."

In 1981, Navratilova became the first athletic superstar to announce her sexual orientation. While her candor cost her millions in endorsement opportunities, her tournament winnings alone in 1982 made her the first female athlete to earn more than one million dollars in a year.

Navratilova retired from women's singles tennis in 1994, but continued as a mixed doubles player until 2006, winning a total of 175 doubles titles in her career. She has earned a reputation as an advocate of gay rights, the environment, animal welfare, and women's issues. She spoke at the 1993 March on Washington and filed a lawsuit against the enactment Colorado's Amendment 2, which banned legal protection for lesbians and gays in housing and employment.

TV analyst Bud Collins said, "Martina is probably the most daring player in the history of the game. She dared to play a style antithetical to her heritage without worrying about making a fool of herself. She dared to remake herself physically, setting new horizons for women in sports. And she dared to live her life as she chose, without worrying what other people thought of her."

Bibliography:

• Blue, Adrianne. Martina: The Lives and Times of Martina Navratilova. Carol Publishing Company, 2005.
  
• Howard, Johnette. The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova. Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship. Broadway (reprint), 2005.
  
• Kettmann, Steve. "Brilliant Careers Profile: Martina Navratilova," Salon.com.

Selected works by Martina Navratilova:

• Martina. Knopf, 1985.

The Williams Sisters Are Dominating The US Open

The Williams sisters are still administering tennis beatdowns to the 2007 US Open women's field. They are on track to meet each other in the semifinals. (what genius set up this draw?)

Venus has been on a roll since the US Open started on August 27. She took out Kira Nagy 6-2, 6-1 in the first round, sent Ioana Raluca Olaru packing with a 6-4, 6-2 butt kicking, quickly eliminated Alona Bondarenko in the third round 6-1, 6-2 and polished off the No. 5 world ranked Ana Ivanovic in a Sunday afternoon matchup at Arthur Ashe Stadium 6-4, 6-2.

Baby sis has had to work a little harder, but she's been just as impressive. In her first round match Serena beat Angelique Kerber 6-3, 7-5, took out Maria Elena Camerin 7-5, 6-2, had to work to beat Vera Zvonareva 6-4,7-6 (7-4) and defeated 2007 Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli 6-3, 6-4.

The sistas are looking dominant, kicking butt and taking names. Hopefully one of them will be taking home the US Open championship trophy later this week.

Venus Won!

On July 6, 1957 legendary tennis pioneer Althea Gibson became the first African-American athlete to win Wimbledon.

50 years to the day of Gibson's triumph, Venus Williams, one of the women now building on her legacy, won her fourth Wimbledon title and her first Grand Slam event title in two years by beating Marion Bartoli of France in straight sets 6-4, 6-1.

She made a little history as well. Since Wimbledon went to the computer raking system in 1975, Venus became the lowest ranked seed (number 23) to win the title. Her world tennis ranking has fallen to number 31 due to the wrist injury she was recovering from.

She also joined Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf as players who have won Wimbledon at least four times since the tournament began admitting professional players in 1968.

The one thing that would have made this 50th anniversary win better is if Serena could have joined her big sis in the final. She fell in the quarterfinals to the current number one world ranked player and tournament number one seed Justine Henin 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.


In this decade, Wimbledon has been the personal playground of the Williams sisters. With the exception of the 2004 tournament, in which Maria Sharapova beat Serena 6-1, 6-4 and 2006 in which Amelie Mauresimo beat Justine Henin, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, either Serena or Venus has been the last one standing at Centre Court holding the Wimbledon championship trophy, ironically called the Venus Rosewater Dish.

I couldn't think of a more fitting way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Althea Gibson's breakthrough win at Wimbledon by seeing Venus hopefully return to championship form.

Watching tennis tournaments will definitely be more fun for me now that my girls are starting to return to their winning form. They just need to stay healthy, avoid the nagging injuries and they could once again dominate like they did at the beginning of the decade. I'd love to see one or both of the Williams sisters eventually win a Grand Slam before they retire.

Today, Althea Gibson is smiling. You go Venus. See you at the US Open.