Today, we all enjoy tennis and marvel at the talent the athletes possess. However, the path was not always laid out for female athletes, and everything we see today is a result of the challenges the veteran athletes faced and the efforts they made, which is why the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) exists today.
In 1970, tennis was moving into the Open Era (the current period in professional tennis that began in 1968, when Grand Slam tournaments allowed professional players to compete alongside amateurs, introduced cash prize money, and ended the long-standing split in the sport); however, women’s pay was drastically reduced. Prominent promoter Jack Kramer offered pay ratios as severe as 12:1 (or 8:1 at the Pacific Southwest Open) in favour of men.
But every story has a hero; in this case, there were 9 of them. On September 23, 1970, these “Original Nine” assembled in Houston, Texas, and signed one-dollar pro contracts with Gladys Heldman, the founder of World Tennis magazine. Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals, Nancy Richey, Kristy Pigeon, Valries Ziegenfuss, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kerry Melville, Judy Tegart Dalton and Julie Heldman (Glady’s daughter).
The one-dollar contracts were signed to participate in their own standalone tournament: the Houston Women’s Invitation sponsored by Virginia Slims.
Gladys Heldman persuaded Joe Cullman— CEO of Phillip Morris— to sponsor the groundbreaking $7,500 Virginia Slims Invitational in Houston, which started on the same day (September 23) that the players signed their contracts. The event was held at the Houston Racquet Club. Concurrently, promoter and tennis titan Jack Kramer was paying the men eight times as much prize money as the women at his Pacific Southwest tournament in Los Angeles. The men’s champion was to receive $12,500.00 while the women’s victor received merely $1,500.00.
Before they revolted in 1970, the prize money received by women’s players was a fraction of what was given to the men’s players. The prize money frequently ranged from 10% to 20%.
The tipping point came in 1972 when Billie Jean King won the US Open and earned only $10,000 while the men’s champion (Ilie Năstase) received $25,000. King publicly threatened to lead a boycott of the 1973 tournament unless female players received equal pay.
After all these challenges, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) was officially established on June 21, 1973. King had convened a meeting of over 50 professional players at a conference room in the Gloucester Hotel in London, just days before Wimbledon began. Unanimously, it was voted to unify women’s professional tennis under a single, player-led governing body, and Billie Jean King was elected as the first president of the WTA.
After the establishment of the WTA and King’s threat to boycott the US Open, the tournament director of the US Open, Bill Talbert, secured a sponsor (Ban Deodorant) to bridge the financial gap. The US Open became the first Grand Slam tournament in history to offer equal prize money.
After the US Open breakthrough, on September 20th, 1973, 55-year-old former World No.1 Bobby Riggs faced Billie Jean King (29), who claimed the women’s game was inferior and that he could still defeat top female pros (he had previously managed to beat Margaret Court in May 1973).
The match was played in front of 30,000 people and watched by an estimated 90 million viewers worldwide. King defeated Riggs in straight sets: 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. This victory gave cultural legitimacy and visibility to the WTA.
Two years later, in 1975, came another milestone for the WTA, as they launched the official computerised ranking system to create an objective, merit-based standard for tournament entries and seedings (replacing subjective committee selections).
Chris Evert became the first official World No. 1 player under this system.
A few years later, by 2004, the US Open (1973) and Australian Open (1973) paid equal prize money; however, Wimbledon and the French Open still paid less to female athletes.
In 2005, Venus Williams met with the Grand Slam Board at Wimbledon to demand equal pay. On the eve of the 2006 tournament, she authored a powerful op-ed in The Times of London stating:
“I intend to use my platform… to stand up for women everywhere… Wimbledon is sending a message that women are inferior.”
After the pressure from Williams, the WTA, and the All England Club announced full prize money equality in February 2007 (with Roland Garros following shortly after). What’s more iconic and poetic is that Venus Williams went on to win the 2007 Wimbledon singles title, making her the very first female champion at Wimbledon to receive the same prize money payout as the men’s champion ($1.4 million / £700,000).
This is what some of the Original Nine have said about their initiative:
Earnings on that level would never have been possible had it not been for the sacrifices made by the “Original Nine”. As Julie Heldman said in 2020, “I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that today’s players are standing on our shoulders—that we were the people who started it, that we did it all together. Had there not been a rebellion in 1970, I don’t know what would have happened with women’s tennis. It would have taken a lot longer to build the game. As the ‘Original Nine,’ we were the ones who were there in Houston, but the moment after Houston was over, everyone else wanted to play.”
Casals points out, “All of us in the Original Nine believed we would be successful and believed it was the right thing to do…. Could we get suspended? Yes. Would we have a circuit or a place to play? Possibly, but maybe not. As history had it, our belief was there in ourselves that we had a good product that would sell. We were proven right.”
King explained, “The Original Nine was not doing this for ourselves. It was a real team effort. I can’t say enough about all of the players I joined to form the Original Nine. Never in a hundred years would I have had the life I have without the nine of us sticking together. And if you don’t have Joe and Gladys, it doesn’t happen.”
They were on a mission, and as Judy Dalton looks back on it all, she is convinced that her Original Nine brigade was unique in its outlook.
She said 50 years later, “I would classify being in the Original Nine as one of my big achievements. We changed history, and tennis would never be the same. Women’s tennis has changed so much. They are great at what they do and make a lot of money. But it is hard for me to imagine the players today doing what we did in 1970 in signing with Gladys. Our Original Nine was just amazing.”
