Original subtitles

Billie Jean is a complex character of infectious dynamism.

Her importance as a player and in the development of tennis

is unquestioned.

Every day I wake up and say, "All right, Billie.

"Today I'm going to be good. I've got to be an angel.

"I've got to just concentrate, never get upset."

And, invariably...

SHE WHISTLES

..something would happen and I'd just...I'd just react.

I'm a perfectionist, and if I do have a goal,

I'll give it everything I can to make it right.

This programme contains some strong language.

This is the inside story of how, in the '70s and '80s,

a cast of unapologetic mavericks

revolutionised the tranquil world of tennis.

You can't be serious. You cannot be serious!

I would say, on some level, there were some anger issues.

You're supposed to, like, be demure and blend in.

BLEEP that!

SHE LAUGHS

Geniuses on the court...

CHEERING

Oh, I don't believe it!

..they were superstars off it.

Martina Navratilova, John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Billie Jean King.

Who's got star presence?

They have.

Bjorn Borg. Bjorn Borg. Bjorn Borg.

Borg was a superstar.

Borg was sex personified. The guy was unbelievable.

He was in a different league.

I mean, he wouldn't have looked at me.

If you said sex god, I hope I was popular for my tennis.

HE LAUGHS

It's in!

CHEERING

Tennis was absolutely massive!

At a time when sport was embracing historic cultural change...

Arthur had wanted South Africans to see a free black man.

You had to be beyond reproach.

Sports are a microcosm of society -

it reflects what's going on in the world.

..the spotlight fell on Wimbledon,

the world's oldest tennis tournament.

It provides a stage for brutal gladiatorial combat

that's disguised as a vicar's tea party.

Here's a newsflash.

If I hadn't been as good as I was, no-one would have given a damn.

PROTESTERS CHANT

In the mid '70s,

it felt like the world was on the brink of revolution.

Women, join us! Women, join us!

Violence is necessary.

We will be free by any means necessary.

There was that feeling

that the establishment deserved

to be put back in its place,

deserved to be told, "No, you can't tell us what to do."

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So a tremendous cheer as they come out for the 1975 final.

On one of the most significant weekends in Wimbledon history,

two of the game's trailblazers, Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King,

were not only intent on winning the tournament,

but changing the world in the process.

INTERVIEWER: Why did you want to change the world, Billie?

Why did I want to change the world?

Everybody should have a chance, everybody should be included,

everybody should have a voice.

Billie Jean King had been fighting for gender equality in tennis,

shifting women from the margins by becoming the game's powerhouse -

impossible to ignore.

The men were always the stars.

The women were the fluff.

And Billie Jean wasn't having any of that.

She showed she had to win.

Before that, it was considered unladylike.

Billie Jean there.

Billie Jean had been the dominant force in women's tennis

for nearly a decade.

Extraordinary.

Famous for her unparalleled court speed,

forceful net game...

Oh, what a courageous winner.

..and fierce competitiveness.

OK. Billie Jean. Let's talk about Billie Jean.

She was a force of nature.

CHEERING

Billie Jean was always looking much further than anybody else was.

She was looking to how women's sport, women's tennis would evolve.

Billie Jean King, the number one person, in my book,

of the last 100 years. that has changed the way

people look at women's sports.

Now aged 31,

having scraped through the semifinal,

Billie Jean was desperate for a sixth Wimbledon title

to bow out as one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

One more minute, ladies.

But first she had to beat Evonne Goolagong Cawley,

Australia's number one tennis star, in the final.

First set. Play.

Out!

My mother's generation did not like Billie Jean King

because they thought she was immodest.

She had a kind of brash American nature to her.

You know, you couldn't be worse

than saying you're going to win a match.

I really wanted to win.

It meant a lot to me.

I pretty much knew that was my last time I had a chance,

and it was really important.

On the same weekend,

Arthur Ashe was bringing racial injustice into focus

by attempting to become Wimbledon's first black men's champion.

I think Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King

came to their activism differently.

Billie had a great compassion

for what black people in America were fighting for.

But Arthur at first was not a feminist,

and there was some tension between them, actually.

It was a great, great thrill. I mean, there weren't many,

you know, black American players or black players generally.

And Arthur Ashe was quite aware of fighting for a place in society

for people of his colour.

Arthur was up against his adversary,

the volatile hot favourite, Jimmy Connors.

APPLAUSE

Connors to serve.

Quiet, please.

Play.

I don't think Jimmy really liked Arthur particularly.

He felt that, I think, Arthur got undue adulation.

APPLAUSE

15-0.

APPLAUSE

30-0.

APPLAUSE

40-0.

In America, people always ask,

"Where were you when John F Kennedy was killed?"

Many people in tennis say,

"Where were you when Arthur Ashe played in the final at Wimbledon?"

Game to Connors.

APPLAUSE

Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe

were trying to change the status quo.

That's the source of all revolution.

And they understood the place they occupy in society

and what they say and what they do does matter.

You can talk from the top of a mountain, nobody will hear you.

Then what? Your voice isn't being heard.

And I knew I had a huge platform at Wimbledon,

so that was the one I had to win.

MUSIC: One Way Glass by Manfred Mann

Crowds arrive, the curtain rises on the first open Wimbledon.

A revolution has taken place.

Billie Jean and Arthur's fight for change started seven years earlier

at a Wimbledon Championship that transformed tennis.

Previously an amateur tournament,

in 1968, Wimbledon entered the open era.

Players were turning professional

and prize money was up for grabs for the first time.

APPLAUSE

We had been through the swinging '60s, when anything goes.

Wimbledon had been peculiarly unaffected by that.

Nobody was allowed to be anything as vulgar as paid.

Wimbledon was the place you wanted to win,

but they had wanted us to be amateurs for a long time,

and I didn't like that. I wanted our sport to be pro.

Amateur means, you know, it's a hobby.

And this was not a hobby.

Black, white or brown skin, short hair and long,

seeking the right to be known as the best player in the world.

Tennis was evolving, extracting itself from the strict amateur game

and becoming a professional sport,

and television picked it up.

And the three on King.

They started showing tennis in colour.

You know, it was a great thing to watch.

They were incredible athletes,

and you saw these people playing at Wimbledon.

So it made it available for mass consumption.

It's Arthur Ashe and the Flying Dutchman, Tom Okker.

But Okker can't match Ashe's blistering power.

After nine years as an amateur, Billie Jean was suddenly playing

in front of a global audience of millions.

But her uncompromising style was ruffling feathers.

Oh, no!

APPLAUSE

No, I'm not very fond of Billie Jean.

I think she's too fond of herself!

I know we're all out to win, but, er...

..she really doesn't like losing, does she?

Can't do that!

The game is possibly not quite so attractive today

with the emphasis on some of the girls,

like Billie Jean King, who charges around the court

very much like a man.

You know, when a woman speaks up, she's tough

and she's harsh and she's hard.

But when a man speaks up, he's a leader.

So...go figure it out.

They always said we played like a guy or like a man,

and I thought to myself, "No...

"..we play aggressively."

Out.

People just assumed that equals a male, and I did not.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The women's finalists, Billie Jean King and Judy Tegart.

At only 24 years old,

Billie Jean scrapped her way to the '68 Wimbledon final

to face the intrepid Australian, Judy Tegart.

Billie Jean has fought for points all through this Wimbledon.

Judy's strong, no-nonsense game is not quite enough

against the American's ruthless cut and thrust,

but it is a good fighting final.

King's service power is swinging it her way.

As a child growing up, I dreamed about winning Wimbledon.

She grew up in a real working-class family.

Her father was a firefighter, her mother was a homemaker

and would sell Avon products to make ends meet.

She was taught discipline and that you had to work for things,

and I think that has always informed her life.

And she used to tell her mother

the world she wanted didn't exist yet,

but that she was going to do something to create it.

APPLAUSE

Now it's championship point for the American.

Tegart serves.

It's out.

Billie Jean has done it...

APPLAUSE

..and her name goes on the huge plate.

The year 1968.

Rod Laver leading Billie Jean around the floor.

But the partnership of the sexes was soon under stress.

Rod Laver won £2,000 and I won £750.

I thought we'd get the same, and we didn't.

That was a wake-up call.

MUSIC: Can The Can by Suzi Quatro

Billie Jean King, world tennis champion

and leader of a special brand of female revolutionaries.

In a radical move,

Billie Jean and eight other renegade players signed a $1 contract

to create a professional women's tennis circuit of their own.

Known as the Original 9, Billie Jean and the gang

were soon touring America,

playing for big money in women-only tournaments.

# So make a stand for your man, honey

# Try to can the can... #

They run their own circuit, proving in a male-dominated sport

that, even in a frilly tennis dress, ladies can be liberated,

especially when backed by half a million dollars' worth

of sponsorship money.

Virginia Slims cigarettes -

a product aimed at the liberated women.

The suppressed creature of former days

is transformed into a groovy chick, complete with dangling cigarette

and the slogan...

With lucrative tobacco sponsorship

and Billie Jean's firebrand campaigning,

women's tennis was proving harder to ignore.

We got money, prize money, and it kept going up every year.

She made women believe that they are equal to men,

so that was a monumental change.

But on the tennis circuit,

Billie Jean's tour was being met with suspicion.

Billie Jean was challenging the notion of what

women athletes should look like,

and how ambitious should they be?

There was a famous Sports Illustrated article

where a guy was dispatched to follow the women's tours.

It was almost like he was trying to reassure people.

He said, "Nobody had a beard. Nobody walked like a lumberjack."

These notions that women athletes were freaks

and that they were destined to these lives

where they were going to be unloved.

And, you know, a lot of it was a code word for...for being gay.

Those were the kind of things they were fighting.

It was clear that Billie Jean's public fight for equal pay

had its critics.

And on a late-night American talk show,

Arthur didn't mince his words.

Did you say that women players ought to be kept in their place,

or something to that effect?

No, no. You couldn't have said anything like that.

I said it when Billie Jean wasn't listening.

CHUCKLING

The amount of money that we make or that we can command in prize money

is directly related to our box office appeal.

Now, what I said was that women don't deserve

the same amount of prize money as men.

INTERVIEWER: Was it frustrating for you that he didn't back equal pay?

Wasn't just him - it was all guys.

They just thought we shouldn't have anything.

Men basically thought they should have all the money at Wimbledon.

They just automatically think it's theirs.

Could I have your autograph, please?

I'm sorry but I have to go and get ready in time.

Sorry. I would otherwise.

Billie's argument was always that they would be stronger together.

They both had their constituencies that they were fighting for,

but Billie has always been a great student

of the civil rights movement.

And so the idea that she couldn't find

some common ground with this guy

really hurt her.

Arthur and Billie Jean's dispute intensified

at a ground-breaking Wimbledon Championships.

While Billie Jean fought to keep up with the men's earning potential,

the men were after even more.

Do you think this is an issue as to who really should run tennis,

the players or the ILTF? I think it may be coming to that.

If they run it all for themselves and want to govern and direct

every tournament in the world, that we can't have.

Fed up with being dictated to by tennis's governing bodies,

a players' revolt was threatening to flare up in the men's game,

and among its leaders was Arthur Ashe.

What the public doesn't,

and the administration doesn't seem to realise

is that we are professional athletes with a mind of our own.

Rather than join forces with the women,

the men formed their own union.

And, just days before the tournament began,

81 men's players refused to compete, staging Wimbledon's first boycott.

Sorry, I'm busy. Right. Could I just...? I'll be back in a minute.

The Wimbledon authorities cannot make us play.

In fact, no tournament in the world,

no tennis event can make anyone play.

MUSIC: Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John

Some of the men may have been absent...

..but Billie Jean saw that year's Wimbledon

as the perfect chance to put the women's game centre stage.

# The ones left behind

# Shine a light, shine the light

# Shine the light... #

Billie Jean was in lightning form,

and beat Evonne Goolagong to reach the final,

hoping for another Wimbledon win.

But standing between Billie Jean

and a fifth Wimbledon singles trophy

was her worst nightmare.

MUSIC: She by Acker Bilk

Chris Evert typifies the regiment of young stars

who have invaded Wimbledon this year -

a new special breed.

18-year-old Chris Evert was something of a prodigy,

shown the ropes from the age of five by her tennis coach father.

And so a Royal occasion as Billie Jean comes on court

with Chrissie Evert in her second Wimbledon ever,

and here she is playing in the final.

Even though I'm American, I think Wimbledon is numero uno.

It's the biggest tournament in the world.

If you're going to pick one Grand Slam title to win,

you want to win Wimbledon.

They could not have been greater opposites.

Chris Evert was presented as Miss Apple Pie.

You know, her hair was never out of place,

she had that beautiful blonde ponytail.

Billie was not universally loved.

Chrissie was more interested in just keeping the status quo

and not ruffling any feathers.

Quiet, please.

Miss Evert to serve.

Adding to the intensity of the match

was that Chris, on the advice of her father,

was one of the few players initially resistant

to joining Billie Jean's controversial women-only tour.

APPLAUSE

REPORTER: Miss Evert's first point.

The crowd unashamedly cast their vote for the underdog -

the lady who is not Mrs King.

Chris had not been a part of Billie Jean's rebel wing.

Billie begged and begged, cos she knew that Chris was

the next superstar on the horizon,

but she would not join them.

When she was starting to speak out for equal opportunities,

equal prize money, I didn't understand.

I was brought up where the father was the head of the household.

The mother would stay home and take care of the kids and cook.

Game, Mrs King.

COMMENTATOR: Mrs King playing with great authority here at the moment.

Five games to love, first set. Mrs King leads.

I was a clay court player. I grew up on clay.

Grass was the antithesis, I think, of my game - serve-and-volley.

And all the women in that era served and volleyed.

APPLAUSE

Two set points.

Billie Jean King wanted to win so much.

She didn't really care about whether people loved her or not,

she just wanted to win the last point.

APPLAUSE

Billie Jean won the first set, 6-0.

But the second set would not be so easy.

My dad taught me at an early age,

"Chrissie, don't let your opponent see how you're really feeling

"because they'll use that to their advantage."

So I kind of went along with that philosophy.

COMMENTATOR: That's more like the lob.

APPLAUSE

That's the shot that's going to worry Mrs King, if anything does.

Chrissie was a goddess. She looked a million dollars.

Everyone fell in love with her.

40-0.

And a really badly timed forehand by Mrs King there.

But, mentally, she was the toughest player

there's ever been in the women's game.

Chris fought back in the second set,

and Billie Jean began making mistakes.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Game. Miss Evert...

..leads in the second set by four games to three.

COMMENTATOR: And really spirited resistance in play there

by Chrissie Evert.

I was only going to be focused. SHE LAUGHS

That was me. That was my nature.

I react to pressure well.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Billie Jean is never discounted as far as strategy.

If she can't intimidate somebody, she'll out-think them.

If she can't out-hit them, she'll outsmart them.

She always found a way to win.

APPLAUSE

I knew I had to try to stay away from her backhand.

If she's on the baseline and you hit it right into her backhand,

which is her strength, you're toast.

COMMENTATOR: Well played, well played!

I knew I had to stay aggressive because Chris is a baseliner.

You can't just, you know, serve-volley, serve-volley -

she's too good. You can't do that.

CROWD GROANS AND APPLAUDS

Billie Jean used all her experience

and turned the screw on her prodigious young rival...

APPLAUSE

..and after one and a half hours,

she had battled to within one point of victory...

COMMENTATOR: Serving for the Championship, then.

..and the chance to cement her position on the world stage.

It's out, and there is the Championship for Billie Jean.

6-0, 7-5.

And so Billie Jean achieves a post-war record -

five times, and that's going to be a record, I think,

that will take a great deal of beating.

Chris lost her first Wimbledon final,

but her calculated gameplay marked her

as a serious threat to Billie Jean's dominance.

Well, I'm not a bad loser, but I'm not a good loser.

I don't rant, rave and throw rackets

and, you know, trash things if I lose.

But thank God I didn't lose that much!

I really, honestly tried to think of,

"What strategy can I use to beat this player that beat me

"the next time?"

CHEERING

And so Billie Jean goes forward to take the famous tray.

As if to prove a point, becoming singles champion

wasn't Billie Jean's only achievement that weekend.

I played three events - singles, doubles and mixed -

and I won all three, which I do not know how.

APPLAUSE

Billie Jean became the first professional player

in Wimbledon history to win a Triple Crown.

But, despite her unprecedented success,

men's champion Jan Kodes pocketed more

just for lifting the men's singles trophy.

It was tumultuous. Very frustrating.

We had a long way to go.

Billie Jean's fight would continue.

PLANE ENGINE ROARS

MUSIC: 20th Century Boy by T.Rex

Arthur Ashe, the black American, is the cause of the biggest controversy

in South Africa at the moment.

Having boycotted Wimbledon, 8,000 miles away,

Arthur was making history of his own.

He has entered for the South African Championships,

but the government claims that Ashe will indulge in politics.

Arthur would be the South Africa tournament's

first black men's player.

Having been critical of the country's apartheid laws,

Arthur, like Billie Jean, hoped tennis would inspire social change.

The apartheid system excluded

virtually 80% of the population

from great swathes of life.

The black community tried to castrate him about going.

But he wanted South Africans to see a free black man...

..because so many of them never had.

Being world-famous and being black

means that, wherever you go, whether you like it or not,

you're a sort of ambassador of your race.

Is that a responsibility that you feel?

Oh, yeah.

I don't like it, but I feel it, and I don't shrug it off.

Where Billie Jean was confrontational,

Arthur was conventional,

befitting a gentleman rebel who grew up in segregated Virginia.

You're dealing here in the South with two different races,

two disparate races.

The children are of very different intellectual aptitudes.

At the ninth grade level, for example,

you find about three years' difference

in the reading skills of the white and the coloured children.

I feel that, here in Richmond, I would not be in favour of it now.

Our father was a caretaker of a 17-acre playground,

and on the playground were tennis courts.

So, growing up, Arthur gravitated to the tennis courts.

South African poets said about Arthur,

"There was a quiet rage in his soul."

He wanted to appeal to as many good people as possible.

That had to be done

not through a lot of bluster and noise,

but through an intellectual vein.

On the day of the South Africa tournament,

a 13-year-old tennis fan was one of thousands

desperate to see Arthur play, travelling in from Alexandra,

one of the poorest townships in Johannesburg.

It was like the second coming.

Everybody was saying, "Isipho is coming."

That's Zulu for gift.

The gift from America is coming.

I knew that this was worth risking my life,

to discover the secret - what had he done to become free?

Under apartheid, there was a black world

and a white world, and the twain never met.

Arthur attended the tournament,

hoping his presence among the white tennis elite

would shatter the legitimacy

of South Africa's strict segregation laws.

He demanded that the tournament had to be integrated,

and for the first time in South African history,

blacks could not only play,

but they could also be spectators.

It was huge.

From the 32 men's players in the tournament,

Arthur made the final against the game's emerging bad boy...

..21-year-old Jimmy Connors.

Jimmy Connors was a working class boy who came out of Central USA,

not the country club background.

He always felt he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

Jimmy Connors was brash, he was confident.

He was everything that the white people wanted a white man to be.

HE LAUGHS

Jimmy was theirs.

For the blacks, Arthur was ours.

So you can just imagine the pressure that Arthur must be feeling,

because he's carrying the weight of all black South Africans.

APPLAUSE

CROWD GROANS

When he lost in three sets...

..I could feel the dejection.

I so much wanted to tell him that,

"Even in defeat, you were triumphant."

Because you made numberless of black people in South Africa

realise that apartheid is based on a lie.

That victory is much more than anything you could have accomplished

on the court.

APPLAUSE

In Houston, Billie Jean had decided to make her most outrageous

statement yet.

She had been challenged to an extraordinary

exhibition match against self-confessed male chauvinist

Bobby Riggs.

Do you like women?

I really think the best way to handle the women is,

is to keep them pregnant and barefoot and...

AUDIENCE LAUGH, GROAN

..this way, they don't worry about getting out in the men's world

and competing for jobs and trying to get equal money

and all that baloney.

At 55, Bobby was a former world tennis number one and determined

to prove men were superior to women.

He'd recently thrashed Billie Jean's contemporary Margaret Court

in a match dubbed the Mother's Day Massacre.

Now, Billie Jean felt compelled to accept Bobby's invitation.

The Battle of the Sexes was the name given to a match with a view

to putting us women back in our box.

She's a woman and women... What does that have to do with it?

Well, they can only do things like men like, about, half as good,

if that good, and even though she's 26 years younger,

she doesn't have my experience. And when we play

a pressure match like this, $100,000 winner take all,

can you imagine anybody in their right mind betting

on anybody but Bobby Riggs?

The winner would receive $100,000

and 90 million people tuned in to see the contest.

She's ready to go and prove a point.

There's so much on the line for that match.

It was men versus women, you know? It was, it was equality.

It was very theatrical.

It was very Hollywood, showbiz,

but that's the way that she had to get to people.

There was a lot of dog whistling in the media coverage.

The introductory remarks about Billie, Howard Cosell,

the leading American sports commentator at the time, said

nothing about her accomplishments or all the titles she had won

or anything else, he was talking about her looks.

Here comes Billie Jean King, a very attractive young lady.

And sometimes you get the feeling that if she ever let her hair grow

down to her shoulders, took her glasses off,

you'd have somebody vying for a Hollywood screen test.

There she is.

Hopefully, if I could beat him,

there would be a emotional hearts and minds shift.

I remember exactly where I was.

The women wanted Billie to win, men wanted Bobby to win.

He wasn't just a showman. People think of him as a clown.

He'd won Singles, Doubles and Mixed Doubles at Wimbledon one year

and won all three events.

Broadcast to the world,

the game had everyone talking, but in interviews before the match,

players and fans were divided.

I think that if I had to bet money, I would bet on Bobby Riggs.

I think Billie Jean.

You do? Yeah.

I think that he's really a tough player.

So I'd have to give him the edge over Billie Jean.

So I said Bobby Riggs.

I was so naive back then.

I cannot imagine taking that challenge on

and you've got to win

because this isn't just about you, this is about

every woman.

I thought it was a risky thing for her to do.

You had a lot to lose in the Battle of the Sexes game, correct?

We had a lot to lose.

The match was the best of five sets.

The first to three would win.

As a recent Wimbledon triple crown winner, Billie Jean was in the best

form of her life,

but representing mankind,

Bobby had a point to prove...

Out.

..taking a 3-2 lead in the first set.

If she lost, you feel the cause of women, ludicrously,

would have been set back.

But Bobby began to tire and Billie Jean won the first set,

6-4.

She wasn't fighting to play men.

She was just fighting for women to have the same chances

that men had.

Billie Jean quickly took the second set with Bobby winning

just three games.

At match point in the third,

Billie was one shot away from winning the Battle of the Sexes.

Despite his bluster, Billie Jean dispatched Bobby in straight sets

in just 57 minutes.

Forget Bobby Riggs, OK? Cos Bobby Riggs

is like a footnote in history at this point.

What Billie Jean King did was the most important thing

in the history of women's sport.

The men thought it should be all for them, that we should go away.

And I thought, "Who said that?"

That year, the US Open became the first Grand Slam tournament

to pay men and women equal prize money.

I remember when she won,

my coach called me and said to me, he said,

"Your hobby has now just become a career."

Having fought his own battle, Arthur Ashe was warming

to Billie Jean's fight, too.

What changed Arthur was when she beat Bobby Riggs

and also apartheid in South Africa, he had an awakening.

And I think both things dovetailed to kind

of bring them back together.

Arthur used to joke he won a lot of money.

He was one of the few men that bet on her to win.

Despite Billie Jean and Arthur's personal triumphs, they made early

Wimbledon exits the following year and now risked being eclipsed by two

familiar young rivals, snapping at their heels.

Chris's popularity was at an all-time high.

Chris Evert took the world by storm.

She was this beautiful young lady who spoke well and was gracious,

and I think she really captured the imagination.

She'd also recently started dating Arthur's tricky rival,

the brash Jimmy Connors,

as Wimbledon welcomed tennis's new celebrity couple.

Did his sort of bad boy image attract you? Absolutely.

LAUGHS

Absolutely.

I managed Connors for nine years.

How was that?

That was difficult.

Connors does not lack support -

he's brought his mum along.

His mother was his coach.

He called his mother every morning.

Jimmy trusted very few people in his life and she was

the number one person.

It should always be the tennis that matters,

I know that,

but you can't help be seduced by antics.

He was a catch. I mean, you were a catch,

but he was, he was like...

Jeez!

LAUGHS

OK. How is Jimmy more of a catch than me?

We were both young, upcoming players,

you know, with great futures ahead of us.

You know, it was like a fantasy.

To the delight of the masses, Jimmy and Chris

announced their engagement.

And with both winning Wimbledon that year...

..the press dubbed it The Love Double.

I don't know which day I was happier. I mean, yesterday, after

I won, it was such a great feeling, you know, to hold the plate and to

realise that I won the biggest tournament in the world.

And today, watching Jimmy play, I think maybe it's the best tennis

match he's ever played in his life, really made me happy also.

With fame and success,

interest in Jimmy and Chris was 24/7.

Did you dance at the Champions Dinner?

Yes.

To the song The Girl That I Marry.

# The girl that I marry Will... #

I wore this long gown and Jimmy was all decked out in his suit.

He was...

If I were to pick a first love, he was the best.

We had a lot of fun.

We had a lot of fun.

The following year, Billie Jean and Arthur were back,

ready to challenge The Love Double's dominance at Wimbledon.

Having beaten Betty Stove in the quarters, Billie Jean met Chris

in the semifinal and this time,

Chris was reigning champion and number one in the world.

Being number one is a very powerful feeling.

You've earned respect,

it's good for your self-esteem,

but if people want to beat one person in the world, it's you.

After over a decade at the top, Billie Jean was 31

and threatening retirement.

She wanted another Wimbledon title to cement her legacy and inspire

the next generation of women.

UMPIRE: Game to Miss Evert.

But tied at one set all,

it seemed Chris also wanted to make a point.

I mean, Chrissie, she was just in a different league.

COMMENTATOR: Miss Evert is often called the Ice Maiden.

The mental toughness that she had, to me, was second to none.

For the most part, I handle pressure well.

If you want emotion, then

you're not going to get it from me on the tennis court.

COMMENTATOR: So, fighting for her life here, Billie Jean.

UMPIRE: Game to Miss Evert.

Mrs King, the number 3 seed, in some danger now.

Within an hour, Chris had blitzed ahead and Billie Jean found herself

just three games away from being knocked out.

Out.

Billie thought that was going to be her swan song.

Everything started running through my mind

that this was my last Wimbledon

and I thought, "Oh, I don't see how I can win now."

With the match slipping away from Billie Jean,

suddenly a familiar face was spotted in the Wimbledon crowd.

The distraction was Jimmy Connors came with

either a date or a girlfriend.

Chrissie and Jimmy Connors had not publicly announced

that they were done.

And he walked in with Susan George, the actress.

Yeah. I mean, I thought we were going to get married.

Three months before the wedding, I had a sinking feeling of,

"Oh, this isn't...

"This isn't right."

We were both trying to be number one, and something had to give,

and our relationship was what gave.

Everybody stopped, you know.

This was back when Fleet Street was at its height.

The flashbulbs were popping, the whole thing.

She lost her concentration, which was the best weapon she had.

Now that was reminiscent of Billie Jean at her very best.

And Chrissie was like, she went off a cliff.

Well played.

The momentum switched to her.

She started playing better after that moment.

Yes! Game to Mrs King.

What a shot that was.

And how can she find the energy?

The length of time this match has gone on, she seems to have

picked up her game, seems to be moving faster and faster.

With the distraction knocking Chris off her game,

Billie Jean took full advantage.

Billie Jean King, five times Wimbledon champion at the moment,

playing as well as she's ever done in her life, I think.

Billie Jean won five games in a row and clawed her way back

to within one point of reaching a ninth Wimbledon final.

Match point for Mrs King.

It's out. That's it.

The resource, the will, the determination,

the pride, everything coming out when it really mattered.

With her fiercest rival out of the way...

The crowd settles for the women's final.

..two days later, Billie Jean was in the final,

up against Evonne Goolagong Cawley

and one match away from retiring as a Wimbledon great.

And Billie Jean being Billie Jean,

she wasn't going to hang around.

Oh, what a finishing shot.

6-0, 6-1.

So Billie Jean King wins what she maintains

will be her last singles appearance.

In one of the most devastating displays ever seen on Centre Court,

Billie Jean won the title in two straight sets, losing just one game

in a record-breaking 39 minutes, the shortest final

in modern Wimbledon history.

If I can just concentrate on tennis, I would have won more,

but we probably wouldn't have professional tennis.

The brilliance of Billie Jean King is she's way ahead of her time.

That was hard for me to understand as a teenager,

but thank God for her, for our sport should thank God for her.

I think it's really important that a person looks in the mirror

and decides, how do you want to remember yourself?

Superb volleying by Billie Jean there.

And how do you want to remember yourself?

Myself?

I'm not finished yet. If I looked in the mirror, I think...

I think I'm on the right course.

And now the great climax, the men's final.

Connors playing Ashe.

The following day,

Arthur Ashe was hoping to be the first black men's player

to win the greatest prize in tennis.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So a tremendous cheer as they come out for the 1975 final.

Arthur Ashe, slightly the taller, 6'1"...

..never had a singles final at Wimbledon.

Now nearly 32, Arthur was in his first Wimbledon final and knew

this might be his last chance.

But his opponent was his old foe, world number one, Jimmy Connors.

In their three previous meetings, Jimmy had won the lot.

I don't think Arthur Ashe isn't a great player, of course he is,

but I wonder, in fact, whether he has the speed of reflexes

and the variety of shot and tactics to contain this explosive boy.

Well, Connors was the heavy favourite

and was the number one player in the world at the time.

Jimmy Connors was totally dominant.

The locker room were in awe of him.

The locker room felt that he was unbeatable.

Great. Nice and quiet, please.

Arthur, you went on the record this year,

you had big ambitions to win Wimbledon today.

Well, I'm looking forward to today.

It's something I've been preparing for, in a sense, all my life.

But there's no doubt that Jimmy Connors is in tremendous form.

He seems to be getting better, more sort of astonishingly

destructive with every round.

He's a very good tennis player, on top of it all, yes.

Turning up the heat on the rivalry was the fact that Jimmy was suing

Arthur for libel, in part for calling him brash,

arrogant and unpatriotic.

We're not the best of friends.

We just don't get along at all.

Are you ready, gentlemen?

Connors to serve.

Quiet, please.

Play.

APPLAUSE

15-0.

With Jimmy at the top of his game,

on the eve of the match, Arthur and his team hatched a plan.

He called me from London the night before and he said, "You know,

"I'm playing in the finals tomorrow." And I said, "Yeah."

I said, "Well, how are you approaching this?"

He says, "I don't know yet."

Arthur said to me, "I'd like to go to the Playboy Club

"and have a quiet dinner, play a little blackjack."

And we really spent the night trying to talk about how to beat Connors.

So we decided that he ought to attack Connors

in a totally different way.

Jimmy was a counterpuncher.

So we said to Arthur, "Number one,

"hit the ball soft on his forehand side."

When you're not giving him much power,

you have to generate your own speed,

so you're down there digging out the balls a lot.

Game to Ashe.

And when you're serving, he's a left-hander,

serve him really wide in the deuce court. Swing him way out.

Arthur Ashe's serve-volley tactic

has never gone better in his life, I'm sure.

And then the third thing, you know, Connors closes very quickly

in the net, comes in very fast. Use the lob. Lob him a lot.

Game to Ashe.

I was actually physically in the stands to watch

Ashe versus Connor.

Arthur totally played a game style that was so different

from what he usually did.

Game to Ashe.

Ashe leads by 5 games to 1.

Traditionally, a big hitter,

Arthur was returning softly, playing drop shots and lobbing...

Oh, I say, that's a, that's a really crude shot.

..bamboozling Jimmy.

That to me looked like an extremely nervous shot.

So this really is a sensational opening by Arthur Ashe.

To go out into an arena and play

the most important match of your life,

totally contrary to your natural style, is possibly the most

difficult thing to do in sport.

Game and first set.

To the Centre Court crowd's surprise

Arthur dominated the first set,

winning 6-1.

Here we are. Now, what is this young boy, this champion made of?

Ashe to serve in the second set.

Champion looking rather disturbed.

At one point, people got quite confused about what was going on.

And they thought Jimmy Connors

is not really trying as much as he should have.

I remember at one point, people kept saying, you know, to Connors,

urging him on, saying, "Come on! Play up!"

30-15.

LAUGHTER

It was an expression which showed the, the triumph

of Arthur Ashe's strategy.

Jimmy, who'd not lost a set en route to the final, was now two sets

down and facing defeat.

Game and second set to Ashe.

6-1.

Ashe leads by 2 sets to 0.

Mrs Connors in the centre of the picture,

very worried.

Jimmy is reading the letter from his mother,

which gives him great confidence.

Well, he was stunned the first two sets, I mean, it was like

somebody hit him in the stomach.

At first, he was disgusted and then he became very agitated.

But Jimmy was a champion and refused to stay down for long.

Great service.

Deuce.

Well played.

Connors is a tremendous fighter.

I mean, he's one of the great competitors in the sport.

Ooh!

APPLAUSE

So set point for Connors.

That's good. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Game and third set for Connors.

Jimmy edged the third set by the narrowest of margins,

winning 7-5.

APPLAUSE

Suddenly the champion really bursts into life. Explosive game then.

Heading into the fourth,

Jimmy looked to have gained the upper hand.

Watching it, I said to myself, "Arthur's mind's wandering."

Game to Connors.

Connors leads by 3-0 in the fourth set.

But under the circumstances, he'll come back to his senses.

He'll come back to what he knows he's supposed to do.

And just meditating there, as he says he often does in a match.

APPLAUSE

Game to Ashe.

We really are watching a tremendous battle here.

3-3 in the fourth set.

In a tense fourth set, Arthur regained momentum and brought

the match to within one championship point of his first Wimbledon title.

So, two championship points for Arthur Ashe.

CHEERING

That's it! And he's done it.

He really has done it.

Game, set and match to Ashe.

6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4.

There were celebrations like you could never imagine.

A man of vision, a man of character,

and here he is at last, the Wimbledon Champion.

Connors was the brawn.

And he was the brain.

And so you can just imagine in my mind and in the minds

of countless young black men, realising the brain of a black

person can find a way to accomplish miracles.

The first black player to win the men's Wimbledon singles title

since it all started in 1877.

In one extraordinary weekend, Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe

had helped advance social change on the hallowed lawns of Wimbledon.

Does it mean anything at all, being the first coloured man player

to win the title here? Oh, sure it does, yeah.

What does it mean to you? Could you explain?

Well, having grown up in a segregated environment

in the South, I know what it's like to be stepped on.

So I know what it's like also to see some black hero do well, you know,

in the face of adversity.

The first black man to ever win.

No-one had ever done it before.

That's huge.

One last question, Arthur. How's your form for the first dance

at the ball tonight with the lady champion?

You know, I've never danced with Billie Jean,

but I look forward to it.

We'd come from different places, but we both continued

to improve this world. Yeah, the both of us.

And we did get along when we had time together.

Then we became very close and I understood him better,

and I think he understood me better.

When did all the celebrity start in tennis?

It was when Bjorn Borg came along.

I didn't want the attention in that kind of way, no.

That's not me. You can't be serious!

You CANNOT be serious!

"Borg, he's so cool, so I'm going to root for him."

Or, "McEnroe, I like him, because he rebels against authority."

The Britishness of Wimbledon is kind of that stiff upper lip.

"It was clearly a wrong call, but I won't say anything."

And McEnroe was like, "Fuck that!"

MUSIC: Get A Grip On Yourself by The Stranglers