As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the US Open, we look back at the 50 champions who have left an indelible mark on this inimitable event.
How to measure the impact of a champion? Naming the US Open grounds in her honor is a pretty good place to start.
In terms of influence, no player in the Open era can rival Billie Jean King. She drove the formation of the WTA and fought for both equality and equal prize money – resulting in just such equity at the US Open in 1973, making America’s Grand Slam the first of the four majors to award the same winner’s purse to both men and women. She also played a key role in the formation of Open tennis, denouncing the rules separating amateurs and professionals and then bridging the gap between the two.
In terms of game, very few can match King’s class. She amassed 39 Grand Slam titles in her decorated career, spreading that bounty among singles (12), doubles (16) and mixed doubles (11). And her longevity – she began her career in 1959 and officially retired from doubles in 1990 – enabled her to serve as an icon to multiple generations, inspiring players from Martina Navratilova to Venus Williams.
Both of those traits – excellence and endurance – were reflected in her US Open performance. King won 13 U.S. championships all told, including four in singles – the last pre-Open era crown in 1967, plus Open era championships in 1971, 1972 and 1974 – five in women’s doubles and four in mixed doubles. It very well could have been more. She also reached singles finals in 1965 and 1968, as well as a semifinal as late as 1979, and she finished as the runner-up in women’s doubles on seven occasions, including four times in the Open era.
Those accomplishments earned King induction into the inaugural US Open Court of Champions in 2003, alongside fellow all-timers Helen Wills and Chris Evert. Three years later, she received what she termed one of the greatest honors of her life: The US Open, the world’s largest public tennis facility, renamed its grounds after the pioneer who grew up playing on the public courts of Long Beach, Calif.
At the ceremony announcing the newly christened USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, its namesake stood at the center of Arthur Ashe Stadium Court and announced, “Mi casa es su casa. My house is your house. This house is our house.” But really, the US Open has always belonged to Billie Jean King, the 13-time champion whose impact, activism and unbreakable spirit have stamped her as one of the Open era’s most beloved and enduring legends.
50 Fact: King is one of only two women – along with Margaret Court – to have won U.S. women’s singles titles in both the pre- and post-Open eras, and she is just one of four women (Court, King, Ann Haydon-Jones and Nancy Richey) to have won a Grand Slam singles title of any kind in both the pre- and post-Open eras.
