A hard hitter -off court and on, Billie Jean

Billie Jean Moffitt King is a former tennis player from the USA. She is the founder of the women’s tennis association and the world team tennis association along with her husband Lawrence King. Billie jean was born in on November 22nd, 1943 in California. She belonged to a conservative family. Her father was a fireman and her mother a housekeeper. Her younger brother randy Moffitt is a professional baseball player.
Billie jean attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School. After graduating she attended Angeles. She married Lawrence king in 1965 in long beach, California but they got divorced in 1987 after Billie jean realized that she was interested in women.
In august 2009, she was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama for her work advocating for the rights of women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community. She made an appearance in the popular sitcom “ugly betty” and is a friend of Elton john.

Billie jean learnt playing tennis professionally on the public courts of Long Beach, California. She made her grand slam debut in 1959 at the age of 15 at the U.S. Championship. In the same year she also played the four of what is called the “Eastern Grass Court Circuit”. King was coached by Alice Marble, winner of 18 grand slam titles. She won her 1st adult tournament title at the Philadelphia and District Women’s Grass Court Championships, defeating Karen Hantze. But following that in South Africa she lost 4 significant matches. King first gained international recognition in 1961 when she won the women’s doubles title at Wimbledon in her first attempt while partnering Karen Hantze.She was only 17 years old. In 1961 she won the Pennsylvania Lawn Tennis Championships for the first time. When she played the Wightman Cup for the first time, she defeated Ann Hayden Jones but lost to Janes. In 1967 King successfully defended her title at the South African Tennis Championships, defeating Maria Bueno in the finals. In early 1968, King won three consecutive tournaments to end her Australian tour. But she had a knee injury towards the end of the year. She did not play in tournaments the remainder of the year. King said that it took eight months (May 1969) for her knee to recover completely from the surgery.

Before the start of the open era in 1968, King earned US$100 a week as a playground instructor and student at Los Angeles State College when not playing in major tennis tournaments. King won 129 singles titles, and her career prize money totaled US$1,966,487. She received numerous awards, honors and tributes over all these years.
In total she has won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. Today she lives in Chicago and New York with her partner Illana Kloss.