With the US Open just days away, WTA legend Billie Jean King took some time to reflect on the golden anniversary of WTA players receiving equal prize money as their male counterparts.
It's been 50 years since King demanded that female tennis players get paid the same as men, and the 1972 US Open champion's efforts have seen women's tennis become one of the most lucrative professional sports for women.
King reminds people that investing in women's sports could be rewarding
"[Fifty years ago], people probably went, 'Huh? What? The women are going to make as much as the guys?' This is a huge event to do that. It starts to change the hearts and minds of people," she said.
"People think there's money in women now. That's why they're buying soccer teams. That's why they're buying basketball teams. That's why they really are investing now. There's no question, the values have gone way up. People think it's a good investment. That never used to happen, at least in women's sports.
"We're going to keep pushing [for equality], because you want it for everyone. If they guys were making what we were making, I would've been pushing for them. But that's not the way it is. Sport is a microcosm of society ... so we have an amazing opportunity to lead and let people think about things, and maybe they'll change.
"Sports give women, particularly, a chance to truly define themselves in a big way. With sports as a platform, we can help make the world a better place."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.