A blizzard couldn't keep 15,000 fans from the inaugural tour match. After his loss to Bobby Riggs on opening night of their 1947 tour in front of 15,000 fans in blizzard conditions in New York (Click here), Jack Kramer admitted...

May 2017

Jack Kramer: young serve and volley golden boy. By 1947, with the amateur game reorganized after World War II, the eyes of the tennis world were on a hot young player named Jack Kramer. One of Perry Jones' "golden boys"...

April 2017

Fred Perry, one of many champions who joined a new pro players association. Buoyed by the success of the World Hardcourt Professional Championships (Click Here), Bill Tilden was convinced there was a market for a series of professional tournaments. Enlisting...

March 2017

How would Bobby Riggs make up for lost time? Amid the rubble and devastation of World War II, history was left to ponder what might have been on many fronts, including tennis. Although minor compared with the epochal issues in...

February 2017

How did the Navy make Bobby Riggs the world's best pro player? In 1941 Bobby Riggs regained the U.S. National crown he had lost the year before, defeating his bitter rival Frank Kovacs in the final. (Click Here.) But World...

January 2017

The press played up the rivalry between Riggs and Kovacs--but was it more serious than anyone realized? After his devastating loss to Don McNeil in the 1940 Final at Forrest Hills, Bobby Riggs was determined to regain the title in...

December 2016

The forgotten clown prince: Frank Kovacs. When we think of bad actors in tennis, the names usually come from the age of TV media--Ilie Nastasie, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, or currently, Nick Kyrgios. Perhaps we think back to Bobby Riggs...

November 2016

Bobby Riggs defeated Welby Van Horn in the final at Forest Hills in 1939. Bobby Riggs came to Forest Hills in 1939 as the Wimbledon champion. As the top seed, the U.S. Championship was his for the taking. Bobby roared...

October 2016

What was Bobby Riggs' real bet on himself at Wimbledon in 1939? Before the start of Wimbledon in 1939—his first and only appearance there--Bobby Riggs walked into one of London's legal bookmaking parlors. An American magazine writer several years later...

September 2016

Bobby (center) was the youngest of 7 kids. Bobby's father, Gideon Riggs, Jr was a fundamentalist minister who moved with his wife Agnes from Tennessee to Southern California. He took a single, struggling congregation in a revival tent and grew...

August 2016

Clown or all time tennis great? Asked once what he'd like his epitaph to be, Bobby Riggs joked: "He Put Women on the Map." Doubtless, he will forever be remembered as the motor-mouthed antagonist to Billie Jean King in their...

July 2016

Hollywood and Vine - circa 1920. In 1920, Vine Street down from Hollywood Boulevard was little more than a passable roadway lined with pepper trees. Melrose Avenue was an unpaved "cowpath," according to the Los Angeles Tennis Club's official history....

April 2016

The Los Angeles Tennis Club. The title there meant the most to Jack Kramer. Before his death, Jack Kramer, tennis legend and winner of 10 major titles, had just a single trophy on display at his modest Los Angeles home....

March 2016