The Daily Telegraph - Sport

Billie Jean was not the tour’s real mother

Folklore has King as the key, but Gladys Heldman did most to drive the women’s tennis revolution, says Simon Briggs

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Like ‘Zelig’, she was there at every significan­t event during the formation of the tour

The eight top names on the women’s rankings – minus injured No1 Simona Halep – are gathering in Singapore to contest the WTA Finals, the season’s traditiona­l endpiece.

This £5.3million event has come a long way from its ancestor: the $30,000 (£23,000) Caesars Palace World Pro Championsh­ips. Played in Las Vegas in 1971, the final pitted Britain’s Ann Jones against Billie Jean King, now revered as the founding mother of the women’s tour. Last year’s Hollywood movie, Battle of the Sexes, underlined King’s status as an LGBT trailblaze­r as well.

Wait a minute, though. While it might be narrativel­y convenient to wrap all these different roles – champion, gay icon, promoter, entreprene­ur – into one superheroi­ne, no one can be all things to all women. Admittedly, King made for a superb figurehead – “Madame Superstar”, as she is dubbed in a new book by 1970s player Julie Heldman. But the real instigator of the WTA Tour was Julie’s mother, the publisher and impresario Gladys Heldman.

As Julie explained in a recent interview with the No Challenges Remaining podcast: “My mother actually engineered and started the women’s tour. She got the sponsors, she got the players, she got a lot of the tournament­s. She was beyond extraordin­ary.”

Julie Heldman called her autobiogra­phy Driven, and subtitled it “A Daughter’s Odyssey”. While she is a fascinatin­g character in her own right, much of the focus is on her brilliant mother, a history graduate who married a national junior champion – Julius Heldman – but only took up the game herself after her second child was born. Still, Gladys was so focused on selfimprov­ement that she became the top player in Texas within a couple of years, even appearing at Wimbledon in 1954.

This was no mere hobby, for Heldman worked tirelessly behind the scenes. She founded World Tennis magazine in 1953 and ran it with such dedication that she used to say: “It took seven men to replace me.” She salvaged the failing US Open – then known as the US National Championsh­ips – by chartering a plane to carry 80 overseas stars to New York for the 1962 event. Without her interventi­on, Rod Laver might have had to wait until 1969 for his first calendar Grand Slam.

Her key ally was Joe Cullman, the owner of the Virginia Slims cigarette brand, whom she had met at the Century Country Club in upstate New York. In 1970, Cullman would put up $2,500 to sponsor the Virginia Slims Invitation­al in Houston – the first profession­al women’s tournament. By 1973, the tour was paying $600,000 in prize money.

And yet, in Battle of the Sexes, it is King who delivers the key line, “We’ll set up our own tournament”, and Heldman who replies “Are we really gonna do it?” No wonder her daughter now says: “The movie didn’t do her any justice at all.”

This could be taken as special pleading, except that the rest of Driven is unflinchin­g in its revelation­s. Gladys Heldman might have been brilliant, but she was also cold, controllin­g and heavily dependent on liquor. Julie was scarred by her upbringing, finally suffering a breakdown soon before her mother’s death in 2003.

Driven is a riveting read – a warts-and-all portrait of a dysfunctio­nal family. Above all, though, it is an important historical document. For all her personal flaws, Gladys Heldman is an essential part of WTA history.

Like a tennis version of Woody Allen’s Zelig, she was present at every significan­t event during the formation of the tour. She deserves better than to be written out of the picture.

 ??  ?? Top player: Gladys Heldman only took up tennis after the birth of her second child
Top player: Gladys Heldman only took up tennis after the birth of her second child
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