Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King

Nobody attacked a tennis court like Billie Jean King. She served and volleyed on principle, took the ball early and treated the net as home ground, a game made for grass and above all for Wimbledon, where she won six of her 12 Grand Slam singles titles between 1966 and 1975. Nine of the 12 came after tennis went open in 1968, the era these records cover, among them a win over a young Chris Evert in the 1973 Wimbledon final.

That same 1973 made her bigger than the sport. In June she gathered the leading players at London's Gloucester Hotel, founded the WTA and became its first president. Her threatened boycott had already pushed the US Open into becoming the first major to pay men and women equally. And on 20 September, in the Houston Astrodome, she beat 55-year-old Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in the Battle of the Sexes, watched by an estimated 90 million people. No player has done more to change what women's sport is worth.