Fiend at Court Unplugged
Renee Richards was an American tennis player who participated on the women’s professional tour from 1997 until 1981. She is most commonly remembered as the only transgender person to compete successfully in professional tennis. Shortly after her gender reassignment surgery, and subsequent relocation to California to start a new life, Richards crossed paths with Bobby Riggs. Naturally Riggs roped her into his escapades. It is one of my favorite stories about the character that was Bobby Riggs.
Riggs was one of the first people to recognize Richards following her surgery. At the time, she was playing tennis at the John Wayne Tennis Club in Newport Beach, California. Riggs claimed that he recognized Richards due to her distinctive backhand. In related news, I am terrible with names and faces, but I can recognize a player by their stroke mechanics from five courts away. In other words, that assertion totally checks out with me.
Riggs and Richards were familiar with each other from their amateur playing days when they were both male. Riggs had heard rumors that his old friend, then known as Richard Raskin, had gone through gender reassignment. Riggs had no issue striking up a conversation with his transformed friend, opening the dialog with “Oh, it’s you!” I want to regard that acceptance as a sign that Riggs was more progressive than people generally give him credit for being. However, he managed to quickly transition that renewed friendship into a hustle.
Richards found herself in San Diego playing a doubles match with Riggs against two guys who in her own words “looked like mob guys from Vegas.” The stakes were $1000 per corner. In other words, the winning team would receive $2000 from the losers. Riggs even went so far to suggest that the other team should see Richards hit a little bit first, and then muttered “… but not too good” to Richards under his breath.
I need to pause the story right here to observe that this event likely occurred circa 1976. In other words, three years after the infamous “Battle of the Sexes” match between Riggs and Billie Jean King. I am astonished to learn that anyone was still willing to wager on tennis with Riggs at that point in time. This makes me rather… unsympathetic… to the “pigeons” involved in this story.
Everyone assemble your shocked face, Riggs and Richards won the match. Riggs instructed her to get in the car quickly as he was collecting their winnings so they could make a clean getaway. I kind of wonder if the two marks ever woke up to how they had been duped. Richards subsequently became a national news story as she won the right to compete on the women’s professional tour in 1977.
I originally came across that story in Johnette Howard’s The Rivals: Chris Evert vs Martina Navratilova which was previously reviewed by this site back in March. The book is readily available on amazon in all formats including kindle. This sponsored link takes you directly to a page where it can be purchased directly. In related news, if you appreciate the content on this site and want to help defray some of the operational costs, there is no better way to help that starting your amazon shopping through those links. It doesn’t cost you anything extra.
In any case, this story was not included in either of Riggs’s autobiographies because it had not yet occurred when either was written. I am wondering how many more delightful stories are still out there, just waiting to be uncovered.
