Billie Jean King’s Vision for Tennis: Modernizing the Sport and Addressing Player Grievances

Billie Jean King, who will celebrate her 81st birthday next week, expressed her desire for tennis to appeal to a younger demographic rather than individuals of her own age group. Her vision includes implementing names and numbers on player shirts and streamlining the scoring system to attract young people to the sport. Despite her reservations regarding the WTA’s expansion into Saudi Arabia, the winner of 39 Grand Slam titles believes that a female world number one originating from the Middle East “could influence in a huge way.” During an extensive interview with BBC Sport in Malaga, conducted at the commencement of the women’s team competition named after her, the Billie Jean King Cup, she also strongly criticized players who voice complaints about the duration of the season yet subsequently participate in profitable exhibition events. Regarding Emma Raducanu, to whom she awarded the US Open trophy in 2021, King stated her reluctance to evaluate players’ performance for a minimum of 18 months following their return from a major injury. Billie Jean King achieved a total of 39 Grand Slam titles, encompassing victories in women’s singles, doubles, and mixed doubles categories. King was a co-founder of World Team Tennis in 1974, an annual professional mixed league held in the summer. However, few of its innovations have been integrated into the primary tennis tours, and the league itself has not been active since 2021. “I would like to see names and numbers on the back of the shirt in tennis,” she stated. “I want to make it easy for fans. I think it should be 1-2-3-4 not 15-love, 30-love.” She elaborated, “If you are a kid – I didn’t come from tennis – what the heck does that mean? If we want to get eight, nine, 10, 11, 12-year-old children involved in our sport we have to make it accessible to them – not to a 60-year-old fan.” This week, only Iga Swiatek of Poland and Jasmine Paolini of Italy, both top-10 singles players, are participating in the Billie Jean King Cup Finals. Notable absences include Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro, and Barbora Krejcikova. While injuries contribute to these absences, the primary cause cited is the extended duration of the season, which commenced with the United Cup on 29 December last year. King further expressed her view that the annual tennis calendar is excessively long. She proposed that the standard WTA Tour season should conclude with the US Open in September, followed by a brief period dedicated to team competitions to round off the year. “It’s so interesting how they always complain it’s too much,” she remarked. “They’ve been doing this forever by the way – but then they get a month off and they go play exhibitions.” She continued, “I go really? You guys said you needed the rest. Don’t tell me you think the season is too long. I know if there’s enough money you go and you play. It’s a really tough argument for me to listen to the players.” In recent months, King has maintained an open perspective regarding the suitability of Saudi Arabia as a host for the WTA Finals. The choice to conduct the year-end tournament in Riyadh drew criticism from various parties due to the nation’s human rights record. Homosexuality is prohibited in Saudi Arabia, and Amnesty International has documented instances of the country’s “jailing of women’s rights activists, suppression of free speech and rampant use of the death penalty.” Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert viewed the decision to award the Finals to Riyadh for a three-year period as a “step backward” for women’s tennis. However, King, who is openly gay, contended that engaging with Saudi authorities was, at minimum, important. Following the conclusion of the tournament’s inaugural edition, King stated that it is now incumbent upon the WTA Tour and the players to determine if this arrangement should continue long-term. She remarked, “I think they have to decide. I know they [the Saudi Federation] did a lot of programmes. Let’s see if they stay, let’s see what happens.” She added, “It’s a really hard one. For the girls that live there, I want them to see the best too. I would love to see a female player come out of the Middle East as the number one in the world as she could influence in a huge way I think.” In 2021, Billie Jean King presented the US Open trophy to Emma Raducanu. Great Britain is aiming to secure the Billie Jean King Cup for the first time, commencing their campaign against Germany on Friday. King observed that among their top two singles players, Katie Boulter and Emma Raducanu, one merits increased recognition while the other requires patience. “Katie Boulter, people should pay attention to her,” King urged. “I’ve been watching her for about five years now and every year she has got a little bit better – I don’t think people appreciate her enough. She’s got quicker, she’s got more consistent.” Raducanu is concluding her initial season back on tour, following an eight-month absence for recovery from hand and ankle surgeries. This year, she advanced to the fourth round of Wimbledon and achieved a world ranking of 58th, notwithstanding a recent foot injury and her decision to maintain a limited schedule prior to the US Open. “If she can stay healthy long enough, then we’ll see how good she is,” King commented. “But if you keep getting injured, you never get that momentum going. If you’ve been injured – really injured – I always want to give a player at least a year and a half to recover.” She concluded, “It takes a lot to come back from injury and you have got to be very patient.”