Tennis Hits the Books
Team tennis is a recurring theme in recent interviews with Billie Jean King as she promotes her latest autobiography, “All In.” To this day, she believes that team tennis is a promising format that can ultimately draw new fans to the sport. In Billie Jean King’s vision, tennis is best when women and men compete together.
In 2020, I followed the World Team Tennis season for the first time in my life. Due to the Covid pandemic, all matches were conducted over a two week period at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. In terms of professional tennis, it was pretty much the only game in town.
For anyone who is not familiar with the World Team Tennis format, the matches consist of five shortened sets representing the five disciplines of tennis. Men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles. The first team to reach five games wins each set and a nine-point tiebreaker is played if a set score reaches four games all. Each game won is a point, and the score is cumulative across all five sets. There are some esoteric rules for Extended Play and a Supertiebreaker may ultimately be used to settle the match.
Billie Jean King was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of World Team Tennis in 1974. It was a unique brand of the sport that eschews many of the customs and traditions. It was one of many anti-establishment jabs she took at the USTA during that era. Her recent interviews reveal that World Team Tennis is still very close to her heart. It also made me realize that I knew precious little about the history of the league.
That brings me to the book covered in this week’s review, Bustin’ Balls: World Team Tennis 1974-1978, Pro Sports, Pop Culture and Progressive Politics. It is a book that everyone should have on their bookshelf if for no other reason than the amazing title. The opening quote in the book from Billie Jean King sets the tone.
For too long, tennis has been a rich, white country club game. It’s time for a change.
Billie Jean King, 1973.
World Team Tennis was created during an alternative sports boom that also saw the rise of the American Basketball Association and the World Football League. In addition, with USTA tennis leagues sweeping the nation, the founders of World Team Tennis thought that the league concept was ripe for professional tennis.
The court for World Team Tennis was a bright multi-colored affair and in the early days did not have separately marked lines. The absence of lines confused both the umpires and the players. The league also invited raucous fan participation and cheering was encouraged at all times during play.
Or rather, it is what the fans would have been encouraged to do had the league caught on. Attendance was a problem from the onset, and there is considerable evidence that attendance numbers that were recorded were significantly inflated.
Player participation was also an issue which traces directly to the calendar. The early World Team Tennis seasons were scheduled on top of the French Open at Roland Garros. As you might imagine, Phillipe Chartrier, the French Federation President at the time was less than enthused about the overall concept. He unsuccessfully lobbied for World Team Tennis members to be banned from all ILTF events.
The league also struggled to attract the top players as they could make more money playing tour events as well as play in front of more fans. While many current and former stars of the game played some World Team Tennis, it was apparent that the league wasn’t viable from the onset.
World Team Tennis is represents itself as operating since 1974, but it isn’t exactly continuous. There were quite a few years that didn’t have a season. The 2020 event at the Greenbrier resort was somewhat of a renaissance for the league. It may have provided a viable model for a the concept to succeed with a compressed schedule at a single site.
Bustin’ Balls: World Team Tennis 1974-1978, Pro Sports, Pop Culture and Progressive Politics is not your typical tennis book. It starts out with a couple of chapters on the history of the league. The majority of the book closely resembles a yearbook. Essentially there is a chapter for each team with a layout of pictures and quotes from some of the more popular players.
Those initial chapters do an adequate job at describing the early days of World Team Tennis as well as some of the underlying politics and machinations associated with the effort. It is important history to know as this unique format of team tennis resurfaces from time to time.
Billie Jean King is now advocating that the format should be considered for collegiate tennis. It is an intriguing concept, especially in an era when scholarship tennis is a frequent casualty to athletic budget cuts. It the NCAA or one of the conferences experimented with the concept, I would definitely watch.
 | Bustin’ Balls: World Team Tennis 1974-1978, Pro Sports, Pop Culture and Progressive Politics |
