![\"Billie](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\tTennis legend Billie Jean King attributes her astonishing success on the court \u2013 winning 39 Grand Slam titles \u2013 to several factors.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFirst of all, being born with coordination \u2014 thanks to my parents and God,\u201d she told us as she stopped by Deadline\u2019s Sundance Studio to discuss a new documentary about her, Give Me the Ball! \u201cMy younger brother played 12 years of professional baseball, Randy Moffitt \u2014 Moffitt\u2019s, our birth name. I wanted to be number 1 [in the world]. That helps. I think having a goal. But my quickness, my vertical jump, also my lateral movement\u2019s excellent because I\u2019m not as tall as I\u2019d like to be. And also, my backhand and my volleys.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHer brilliance as a player and immense popularity with fans would have secured her legacy for all time. Yet it\u2019s what she did with her fame that makes her one of the most remarkable figures in American culture.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tESPN<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe fought for equal pay for women in the sport,\u201d observed Elizabeth Wolff, who co-directed the documentary with Oscar nominee Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone?). \u201cAnd then through her leadership in tennis, [she] had a platform to really change the hearts and minds of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat platform really became huge in 1973 when King took on former men\u2019s tennis champion Bobby Riggs, who loved to ridicule women as incapable of competing with men. But in what came to be known as the \u201cBattle of the Sexes,\u201d King outsmarted Riggs tactically and whipped him in three straight sets as the nation looked on.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tBillie Jean King and Bobby Riggs attend a news conference in New York to publicize their match at the Houston Astrodome, July 11, 1973. (AP Photo)<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAP<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThis was a moment where 90 million people were watching and she could bring the message of equality for men and women and everyone to a global audience,\u201d Wolff said. \u201cAnd that was just the beginning point because for the last 50 plus years since then, she has continued to do that. And we see the effects of that in women\u2019s sports today. I mean, everything we see today started right here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tGarbus drew a parallel between King and Sundance founder Robert Redford.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe didn\u2019t just take leading roles, one leading role after the other. He actually put his money and his energy and his time into creating the next generation of great artists. And I think there\u2019s a lot of DNA crossover between Billie Jean King and Robert Redford. They\u2019ve both got gorgeous eyes,\u201d Garbus noted wryly, \u201cand they both put community ahead of self. And that\u2019s the kind of thing we need today in 2026, are leaders and thinkers like that. And so, I think this is really a film of this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tESPN will air the documentary at a later date as part of its 30 For 30 series. ESPN is also the U.S. broadcast home to the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the year that\u2019s underway in Melbourne. We couldn\u2019t resist asking Billie for her predictions on the winners. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou have to go with [Carlos] Alcaraz or [Jannik] Sinner, but it\u2019s so hot there. Alcaraz handles the heat better because he is Espa\u00f1ol. He\u2019s got darker skin. Sinner barely got through his first round\u2026 and they had to close the roof is the only reason it saved his you know what \u2014 his backside,\u201d said the champ. \u201cAnd as far as the women, I mean [Aryna] Sabalenka\u2019s number 1 right now, she\u2019s the one to beat. So, we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWatch the full conversation in the video above.<\/p>\n
\n\tDeadline Studio at Sundance presented by Casamigos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis legend Billie Jean King attributes her astonishing success on the court \u2013 winning 39 Grand Slam titles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[151375,18,151376,117,13499,151377,19,17,151378,327,16998,148922],"class_list":{"0":"post-309264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-billie-jean-king","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-elizabeth-wolff","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-espn","13":"tag-give-me-the-ball","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-liz-garbus","17":"tag-movies","18":"tag-sundance","19":"tag-sundance-studio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115976778754803575","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}