Most athletes today want to leave an indelible mark on their sport, building legacies through championships and records. But for tennis legend, Billie Jean King, victories have become tools of transformation, dismantling barriers with the same precision she once used to trounce her opponents. Fifty years after the most consequential match in sports history, the revolution King started in a Houston stadium is landing in China, and the woman who changed everything is finally making a childhood dream come true.
One of the most epoch-shaping tennis matches of the 20th century wasn’t played at Wimbledon or Roland Garros or Melbourne Park.
Instead, it took place on a humid Houston evening on September 20 1973, in a converted baseball stadium, where a 29-year-old woman stepped onto the court carrying the weight of an entire movement on her shoulders. Billie Jean King had spent her career winning titles, but this one was different. This was about winning the future.
“I remember thinking, ‘If I lose, it sets us back 50 years,'” King recalls of the night she faced Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes. The match was supposed to be entertainment, a novelty bout between a 55-year-old former champion and the current women’s world number one. Instead, it became a cultural inflection point that would define not just King’s identity, but the trajectory of women’s sport itself. King won of course, and the moment was later immortalised in the 2017 film Battle of the Sexes, with Emma Stone portraying her and Steve Carell as Riggs, underscoring how one night of tennis continues to resonate far beyond the court.
More than fifty years later, King is still playing for the future. At 81, she’s about to fulfil a childhood dream that required dismantling institutional barriers first. This September, the tournament that bears her name will land in Shenzhen for the Billie Jean King Cup Finals—the first time in the competition’s 60-year history that its ultimate stage has arrived in Asia.
“This is my first trip to China, and it has been a dream of mine since I was eight years old,” King shares exclusively with Beyond the Boardroom, who will be on the ground in coming weeks to cover the tournament. “I am looking forward to meeting a new generation of athletes, fans, and leaders who are bold and ambitious. If even one girl watches this tournament and thinks, ‘That can be me,’ then we’re doing something right.”
Often described as the “World Cup of tennis,” the Billie Jean King Cup is the highest international honour in the women’s game. It’s a rare moment where the stakes aren’t personal — they’re patriotic — with athletes competing as a national team, carrying not just racquets, but the weight of their country’s hopes. “Team tennis has always held a special place in my heart because it’s about unity, collective effort, and fighting together for something bigger than individual athletes or accolades,” shares King. “With nations like China, Italy, the US, UK, Japan, Kazakhstan, Spain, and Ukraine in the mix, it’s going to be a showcase of world-class tennis that fans can truly rally behind!”
Beyond the Court
The journey from a dreaming girl born in Long Beach, California, to this moment represents more than personal achievement. It embodies a revolution that King has been quietly reshaping in society for decades—one institution, one battle, and one breakthrough at a time.
What started as a fight for equal prize money in tennis decades ago, has become something far more expansive. King understood early that sport could be a vehicle for social transformation, and that victories on court could translate into progress in boardrooms, classrooms, and legislatures. The Battle of the Sexes proved women deserved to be taken seriously, but the real work began after the cameras stopped rolling.
“The Battle of the Sexes was much more than tennis, it was about social change,” she reflects. “Over time the match became a permanent thread in my identity, but more importantly, it galvanised the movement for gender equality for generations to come.”
King has since spent over five decades pushing the needle on issues that include and extend far beyond her sport. In 1973, she founded the Women’s Tennis Association, bringing women’s professional tennis under a single, powerful voice. The following year she established the Women’s Sports Foundation, and in 2014 she co-founded the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative (renamed the Billie Jean King Foundation in 2024), a nonprofit committed to creating a fairer future through sport, education, and activism. In 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, the United States’ highest civilian honour, in recognition of her advocacy for women and the LGBTQIA+ community.
She also played a pivotal role in defending Title IX—the landmark 1972 US law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education—ensuring millions of American girls gained access to school sports. After being outed in 1981, she emerged as one of the first well-known openly gay athletes, a courageous act that carried significant professional and personal risk. Along the way she’s become one of the most quotable voices in sport and society, reminding the world that “pressure is a privilege,” and that her life’s work was about “equal rights and opportunities” for all.
And while it may appear as a trajectory of celebrations alone, the journey to success has been far from easy. Even as a celebrated champion, King has weathered everything from public scrutiny to the loss of lucrative sponsorships, and the loneliness that often comes with being ahead of one’s time.
She has however found true joy and love along the way. Her relationship with Ilana Kloss, her former doubles partner, culminated in a private marriage in October 2018 following legalisation of same-sex marriage. Kloss is no ordinary partner, a former world champion and powerhouse executive in her own right, serving as CEO of Billie Jean King Enterprises, co-founder of the Billie Jean King Foundation, and chair of the Billie Jean King Cup Ltd. Together, they also are part of the ownership groups of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, and Angel City FC, while steering women’s sport beyond boardrooms and arenas.
Photo: Kevin Tachman
King has often spoken of their marriage with characteristic warmth. “Ilana is the best thing that ever happened to me. She inspires me every day. We often say, ‘I dream it and she builds it.’ She has an amazing ability to get to the solution and move things forward without ever losing sight of the original vision,” she told People in 2024.
No matter the highs and lows, each victory has created momentum for the next fight for King. From equal prize money at the US Open sparking broader conversations about pay equity across sport and industry, to the institutional strength of the WTA showing what women could achieve when they organised collectively, she remains a force at the intersection of business and sports culture.
“Sometimes just being heard was its own victory,” she explains, reflecting on those early battles. “Founding the WTA was about standing together, proving that women belonged at every table with a vote in the decision. When we secured equal pay at the US Open, it wasn’t symbolic, it proved that women deserved to be there as equals, on and off the court.”
King also refuses to let commercial growth become an excuse for complacency, constantly asking: “Are you investing in women’s sport as much as you are in men’s?” Her conversations with current players emphasise that talent alone isn’t enough, understanding contracts, governance structures, and economic systems has become essential for lasting influence. “For women athletes to truly have influence, they need to know the business side,” she argues. “That’s how you own the table, not just sit at it.”
From Houston to Shenzhen: A Global Stage
This philosophy of collective empowerment has perhaps found its purest expression in the tournament that would eventually bear her name. The Billie Jean King Cup, formerly known as the Fed Cup, began in 1963 to mark the International Tennis Federation’s 50th anniversary. From the start it offered something rare in the sport, a format where the brightest individual stars laid aside personal ambitions for national pride. Over the decades it has travelled the world, from the inaugural event in London to finals staged in Madrid, Prague, and now Shenzhen, each edition reflecting the growth of the women’s game.
Its roll call of champions doubles as a history of tennis itself. Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals and Chris Evert leading the United States through dominant runs in the 1960s and ’70s, Steffi Graf anchoring Germany in the 1980s, Spain’s Arantxa Sánchez Vicario sparking a golden era in the 1990s, and more recently players like Serena and Venus Williams, Justine Henin, and Petra Kvitová leaving their mark. Unlike the Grand Slams or tour events, the BJK Cup has always been about subsuming individual ambition into a collective cause: no WTA ranking points, and team prize money is awarded based on team results and shared among players, with the focus being on the honour of carrying a nation’s colours onto the court.
King shares that she’s always understood the power of collaborative competition: “When women walk onto the court wearing their country’s colours, they become role models, not just for victory, but for courage, teamwork, and possibility.” The tournaments also embody everything she’s ever fought for, from visibility to representation, and the idea that sport belongs to everyone. That it now carries her name feels like vindication of a lifetime spent building platforms for others to shine.
The Cup’s journey to China also represents the culmination of this vision. For decades, King has believed that women’s tennis needed to expand beyond its traditional Western strongholds, to embrace new markets and audiences who could bring fresh energy and perspectives to the game. Asia, with its rapidly growing appetite for women’s sport and its economic dynamism, represents the natural next chapter in this global expansion.
“Asia is poised for a breakthrough,” King observes. “The region’s passion for sport, combined with a hunger for equality, is pushing the game forward in ways that will inspire new models of leadership. My vision is for every girl in Asia to know she can dream as big as she wants, and find the support to achieve it.”
The choice of Shenzhen carries deep symbolic weight. The city epitomises dynamism and innovation, and has already proven its credentials by hosting the WTA Finals in 2019, where Ashleigh Barty lifted the trophy in front of packed crowds. China today counts over 25 million recreational tennis players, and the legacy of Li Na’s Grand Slam triumphs continues to inspire a new generation of champions such as Zheng Qinwen.
For King, bringing the Cup Finals here signals something profound, that women’s sport is not a Western export but a shared global project, rooted in local passion and possibility, and belonging to everyone, everywhere. “Bringing the Billie Jean King Cup Finals to Shenzhen is not just a milestone for us, it’s a powerful statement about the truly global spirit of women’s sport,” she says. “Hosting the Finals in China signals that visibility and opportunity now belong to everyone, everywhere.”
King’s excitement about the tournament extends beyond the matches themselves. She sees it as validation of everything she has worked toward, a global stage where the next generation can see themselves reflected, where dreams can take root and flourish. The visibility matters because, as she repeatedly emphasises, “You have to see it to be it.”
“I want the next generation of Asian athletes and fans to see themselves in every match, to believe their dreams are possible,” she says. “That’s the real victory. This event is just the beginning of a new era.”
Game, Set, Revolution
As for the future, King’s vision remains expansive. She believes women’s sport is experiencing unprecedented momentum, with global audiences surging and commercial opportunities expanding. Yet she acknowledges significant challenges remain, ensuring investment is sustained rather than episodic, embedding women in governance structures, and maintaining grassroots pathways.
“My role now is about amplifying voices that have too often gone unheard. Equality and inclusion aren’t destinations, they’re ongoing commitments,” she asserts. She adds that she regularly discusses how activism off court can be as transformative as performance on it with current players, emphasising that modern leadership requires understanding rights, value, and economic systems.
Photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images for ITF
It’s clear to see that for King, victory has never been measured solely in trophies or prize money, but in the possibilities created for others. Now in Shenzhen, a new generation will inherit this legacy she began building 50 years ago, not just as players, but as leaders, activists, and dreamers who understand that sport can be a vehicle for changing the world. Half a century on, the longest rally of her life continues, and Billie Jean King shows no sign of letting the ball drop.
Catch all the culture meets business highlights from the Billie Jean King Cup finals in Shenzhen from 16 to 21 September 2025 in partnership with Beyond the Boardroom.