Tennis keeps making history this summer.
First in June there was the infamous Isner-Mahut match that went on for a staggering 11 hours and 5 minutes at Wimbledon defying all previous historic matches. Shame now they have the roof on Centre Court, BBC will never get to replay the Isner-Mahut match like they did the 1969 Gonzales-Pasarell encounter, coming in a mere 5 hours 12 minutes.
Then this month in July there has been the attempt at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels to break the record for the largest audience at a tennis match.
The previous record held by Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs was a monumental exhibition in more ways than one.
It was referred to as the Battle of the Sexes in 1973 when King took on the challenge from male chauvinist Riggs who believed that the women’s game was inferior to the men’s. A 1939 Wimbledon Champion, Riggs claimed he could beat the current top player’s in the women’s game even though he was retired by some decades.
Pomp & Ceremony - Billie Jean King arrives like a Queen in Houston 1973
The exhibition was played at the Houston Astrodome in Texas, USA in front of then record 30, 492 spectators and a massive worldwide TV audience estimated at 50 million people across 37 countries. (FYI: Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne 16,820; Court Philippe Chatrier, Paris 15,166; Centre Court, Wimbledon 15,000; Arthur Ashe Stadium, New York 22,547).
King entered the Astrodome Cleopatra style, carried aloft in a chair held by four bare-chested muscle men dressed in the garb of ancient slaves. Riggs followed in a rickshaw drawn by a bevy of gorgeous scantily-clad models.
The final score? King beat Riggs 6-4 6-3 6-3. This was a huge leap for women’s tennis helping it to gain worldwide recognition and respect thanks to Billie Jean’s persistent and determination to win the match for all womankind.
The 2010 Battle of the Belgians hasn’t had the same global following as perhaps hoped for. Belgian’s tennis stars Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin were to play off on home soil and given their previous head to heads, it was likely to be a battle indeed.
The event turned out a bit of a disaster (title billing wise) when Henin had to pull out due to injury sustained at Wimbledon (ironically during her fourth round encounter with Clijsters).
Step in Wimbledon Champion Miss Serena Williams which considering her dramatic and controversial US Open Semi final clash last summer with Kim Clijsters, this 8th July exhibition could have been billed as a grudge match on Kim’s back yard.
Serena Williams, smiles as she poses with Belgium's Kim Clijsters, Italy's Francesca Schiavone and Martina Navratilova in Brussels, Thursday July 8, 2010
However the energy and mental toughness that it takes to win a Slam bore on Serena and she was not able to give her best performance and a lack-lustre 6-3 6-2 score saw Kim victorious once again over Serena.
Could they not have even played best of 5 sets to make things interesting and a bit longer for the fans? Despite the scoreline, with 5,189 extra spectators than the Battle of the Sexes, a new world record was written in Brussels.
The world’s media, albeit still in World Cup fever, did not ignite this story to the level the Battle of the Sexes created 37 years ago. In one sense, it is a shame that historic match now loses its world record status to a match that wasn’t even what it was supposed to be billed as.
BJK remains a strong stalwart of women’s tennis saluting the magnificence of Serena’s talent during a BBC interview at Wimbledon but one wonders what she really thought of this match up in Belgium. My research for this post showed that BJK was supposed to be the chair umpire but reports and pics from the match revealed that Martina Navratilova kept score.
With the rules in women’s tennis only allowing best of 3 sets, its highly unlikely mathematically that we’ll ever see a women’s match make or even break Isner-Mahut’s record. At least Women’s tennis can hold their own in the world record books for audience figures.
Who said women’s tennis wasn’t popular? 35, 681 in Brussels were true fans. Go girl Power!!
