In 1975, a former Yale University tennis star named Richard Raskind had a sex-change operation and became a woman, establishing a new identity as Renee Richards. Raskind had been captain of the Yale men’s team in 1954 and a successful player in senior competition. He reached the semifinals of the US Men’s 35 Championships in 1975.
Richards, an ophthalmologist, won a women’s local championship in La Jolla, Calif., in July of 1976. She wanted to play the US Open that year, but refused to take a chromosome test and could not play. But she played a number of other tournaments, including one in South Orange, N.J., run by Gene Scott.
Eventually she went to court to gain admission into the US Open and Dr. Richards was allowed to compete at Forest Hills in 1977. The 43-year-old left-hander had an awfully tough draw, meeting No. 3 seed and 1968 US Open champion Virginia Wade in the opening round. Wade had won Wimbledon earlier in the summer. This was the kind of match that might have made others entirely apprehensive, but not the Englishwoman. Wade was self assured from the start. She went to the net as often as possible, used her sliced backhand to make Richards dig out low balls uncomfortably, and confidently controlled the tempo for the most part in a 6-1, 6-4 victory.
Julie Heldman wrote in World Tennis, “Only 12 days before the Open, New York Supreme Court Judge Alfred M. Ascione ruled that Renee had to be included in the US Open. Playing Virginia was her first opportunity against a top player. Renee was visibly nervous on court, which her father couldn’t understand. He said, ‘Dick (her former name) played Neale Fraser in the Stadium here in 1960 and shouldn’t have Stadium nerves.’ ”
But the fact is that Richards was apprehensive. Wade would say afterwards of Richards, “She played better than I thought she would against me, better than she played against hackers. But she didn’t maneuver me out of court once. I guess that is the difference between women’s and men’s tennis: we need to use more tactics to win.”
Richards, however, made her mark in the doubles. Alongside Betty Ann Grubb Stuart, she reached the final before losing to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stove. She remained on the WTA Tour until 1981, when she was 47. Richards twice advanced to the semifinals of the US Open mixed doubles with Ilie Nastase, reached a career high of No. 20 in the world in singles, and dealt with the demands of being a transsexual with unmistakable grace. She then made an impressive transition to coaching, making valuable contributions to Navratilova in that role.
Who knows how well Richards might have done if she had become a woman a decade sooner? Perhaps she would have been a top ten player in singles; perhaps not. But this much is certain: her willingness to change her sex and compete on the women’s tour was courageous. The players were skeptical of her at first, not certain they wanted her on their circuit, and ambivalent about whether or not she had unfair advantages in physicality. But through it all, Richards was steadfast in her beliefs, and dignified in her pursuit of choosing to play tennis for a living while she still had the chance in her forties. That was no small thing.
