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Hall of Famer Billie Jean King Celebrates Her Autobiography’s Legendary Award Nomination

Published 05/09/2022, 9:04 AM EDT

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12-time Grand Slam winner Billie Jean King is one of the legends of this game. She is one of the very first women tennis players to fight for equality in tennis. Her famous ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match with Bobby Riggs was one of the most talked-about matches in the history of tennis. She captured each of her life’s journeys in various books and autobiographies. Last year, she published her autobiography called ‘All In’. Recently, Billie Jean King shared a piece of great news with her fans, as her book achieved a great feat. 

Billie Jean King shared the success of her autobiography

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A few days back, the former American tennis star tweeted, “Honored to announce that my autobiography, All In, has been shortlisted for the Sports Book of the Year in the International Autobiography category. The Sports Book Awards is the major annual promotion for sports writing and publishing in the UK.”

Certainly, this was a great achievement for the legendary tennis player. In her book, ‘All In’, she mentioned the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ where she won $100,000 at that time as a woman. According to her, that win against Bobby Riggs changed the course of women’s tennis around the US and in the world. Among many other things, she also talked about a good deal of discrimination she faced early in her career. 

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It is worth noting that she wrote plenty of other books and autobiographies as well. ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘The Autobiography of Billie Jean King’ are some of her other autobiographies. Also, she wrote a few books, such as ‘Pressure Is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes’ and ‘We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women’s Tennis’. 

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The Story of the ‘Battle of the Sexes’

Before the match took place in September 1973, Bobby Riggs had already beaten Margret court earlier in the same year. Then she challenged Billie Jean King for a match, which she accepted.

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The match itself was an amazing spectacle, as 30,472 people watched the match live from the stadium in Houston. At the same time, almost 90 million people around the world watched this match from their TV sets. In the end, King beat Riggs in three straight sets, which perhaps changed the destiny of women’s sports. The final score of that match was 6-4,6-3,6-3, in favor of King.

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Written by:

Debkinkar Maity

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Debkinkar Maity is a Tennis Author at EssentiallySports. His desire to become a sports journalist inspired him to take up a degree in journalism and mass communication, and he hasn't looked back ever since. Following the sport for over a decade now, Debkinkar has an ardent love for Roger Federer.
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Edited by:

Deepakshi Chaudhary