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By Gigi Picard ’22
Sports Editor
The Original 9 celebrate 50th anniversary of professional women’s tennis
The nation celebrates 50 years of women’s professional tennis
50 years ago, nine women changed professional tennis with $1 contracts
Why women’s tennis changed 50 years ago with nine women and $1 contracts
Women’s tennis changed forever 50 years ago by nine women and $1 contracts
How nine women changed women’s tennis with $1 contracts
Women’s tennis has nine women and $1 contracts to thank 50 years later
Nine women, $1 contracts, two tournaments changed the world of women’s tennis
Tennis court battles: Nine women, $1 contracts, two tournaments
Nine women, $1 contracts, two tournaments, two men helped changed tennis
Women’s tennis celebrates the Original 9 and their counterparts 50 years later
Nine women, $1 contracts, two tournaments paved the way for women in tennis
On Sept. 23, 1970, female tennis players Rosie Casals, Nancy Richey, Billie Jean King, Valerie Ziegenfuss, Judy Tegart Dalton, Kerry Melville Reid, Jane Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon and Julie Heldman took a step forward in the fight for equal rights on the tennis courts. Two of them were Australian and seven were American.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of when those nine women, called the “Original 9,” each signed a $1 contract under the guidance of World Tennis Magazine founder Gladys Heldman. King wrote about this event in The Players’ Tribune, where she said, “With one unified voice, each of us signed a ceremonial $1 contract with Gladys to play in the inaugural Virginia Slims of Houston.”
“We drew a line in the sand and we put everything we had on that line,” King continued in The Tribune. “It was now up to us to create our own tour, to find a place to make a living and to breathe life into women’s professional tennis.”
Around the 1960s and 1970s, men’s tennis became increasingly popular, which meant that female tennis players were given fewer opportunities for pay and play.
What ignited the women’s contract decision was the fact that former tennis player and promoter Jack Kramer would not reduce a specific tournament’s 12:1 ratio of men’s to women’s prize money. The women almost played in the Pacific Southwest Open in Los Angeles, California; however, the men’s champion would receive $12,500, while the women’s champion would receive only $1,500.
A boycott was started by King and Casals, but it failed. “We wanted to be paid equally and we wanted to be treated fairly,” King said in The Tribune. “Originally we had hoped to partner with the men’s tennis tour and have a unified voice in the sport on a global basis. But the guys wanted no part of it. And not every women’s player wanted to join us.”
The women then regrouped and formed the Virginia Slims circuit, and with it, women’s professional tennis. Later, Heldman encouraged the nine to hold what would become the first Virginia Slims tournament in Houston, Texas. The name of the tournament is due to their sponsor, Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand owned by Philip Morris that Heldman was able to obtain.
“She knew how to get a sponsor, she had great connections,” Ziegenfuss said about Heldman in an interview with the Women’s Tennis Association.
The U.S. Lawn Tennis Association was not in support of the women. Instead, officials threatened to suspend any tennis players who took part in the tournament.
In March 2020, Julie Heldman sat down with Scott Flink from USOpen.org to discuss her mother and the Original 9. “At some level, the women who ended up being the Original 9 were brave, but at another level, there was not much to lose,” she said. “My favorite threat of theirs was that you can’t have two professional tournaments in the country at the same time, but that was not true. Their other threat was we could have a tournament, but it had to be amateur. Nobody wanted to do that. So my mother came up with the idea of everybody signing to become a contract pro. We went out and had that photo taken of all of us holding the $1 bills.”
Casals was the first winner of the invitational with Dalton as the runner-up. The prize money awarded was $7,500. In an interview on Sept. 16, 2020 with Matt Fitzgerald from tennis.com, Casals expressed her gratitude for Virginia Slims, the sponsor which allowed women’s tennis to become a professional sport.
As of today, all members of the Original 9 are retired. Gladys Heldman passed away in 2003. In 1972, King helped pass Title IX legislation that would ban sex discrimination in sports. The following year, King announced a boycott of the U.S. Open tournament unless men and women were granted equal pay. Her campaign was successful, and men and women received equal prize money in that tournament.
Also in 1973, King founded the WTA, which would bring together all of the women's professional tennis tournaments in a single tour. Virginia Slims stopped sponsoring women’s tennis in 1990 and General Foods took over as the new sponsor. This year the WTA announced that The International Tennis Hall of Fame also opened a new exhibit about the Original 9 called “We’ve Come a Long Way” in honor of the Original 9.
While men and women receive equal prize money in tournaments, there is still a pay gap in tennis. According to CNBC, “At the 2015 Western & Southern Open in Ohio, Serena Williams was paid $495,000 for winning the women’s tournament title while Roger Federer was paid $731,000.” Further, CNBC added that even the top 100 female earners in tennis make 80 cents to the dollar of what the top 100 male earners make. The large pay disparity shows there is still a large inequality in some tennis tournaments.