50 Facts About Bobby Riggs

Robert Larimore Riggs was an American tennis champion who was the World No 1 amateur in 1939 and World No 1 professional in 1946 and 1947.

Bobby Riggs played his first professional tennis match on December 26,1941.

Bobby Riggs was US champion again in 1941, after a runner-up finish the year before.

Bobby Riggs organized numerous exhibition challenges, inviting active and retired tennis pros to participate.

Bobby Riggs was an excellent table tennis player as a boy and when he began playing tennis at age twelve, he was quickly befriended and then coached by Esther Bartosh, who was the third-ranking woman player in Los Angeles.

Bobby Riggs went undefeated for four years of play at Franklin High School in the Highland Park, Los Angeles neighborhood and was the first person to win California's state high school singles trophy three times.

At 18 in 1936, Bobby Riggs was still a junior but won the Southern California Men's Title, Los Angeles Ambassador hotel event and Los Angeles metropolitan championships and then went East to play on the grass-court circuit in spite of Jones's opposition.

Bobby Riggs won the US Men's Clay Court Championships in Chicago, beating Frank Parker in the finals with drop shots and lobs.

Bobby Riggs won Missouri Valley, Nassau Bowl, Cincinnati, Eastern clay court championships, Newport Casino, Pennsylvania clay court championships and Dade County tournaments.

Bobby Riggs beat Parker in the final of the Newport tournament, which was one of the lead-up events before the US Championships.

Bobby Riggs pumped those shots at Parker whenever he tried to storm the net.

Bobby Riggs liked me personally too, but he'd never give me a break.

Bobby Riggs beat Gardnar Mulloy in the final in five sets.

In 1939, Bobby Riggs made it to the finals of the French Championships but then won the Wimbledon Championships triple, capturing the singles, the doubles with Cooke, and mixed doubles with Alice Marble, who won all three titles.

Bobby Riggs won the eighth and last game easily and a match which while rather lacking pep, had been entertaining enough in its clever way.

Bobby Riggs won events at Western indoors in Chicago, Bermuda championships, Chattanooga, Asheville, Hot Springs, Southampton, Eastern grass court championships, Pacific Coast championships and Chicago indoors.

Bobby Riggs teamed up with Alice Marble, his Wimbledon co-champion, to win the 1940 US Championships mixed doubles title.

Bobby Riggs lost in the 1940 US Championships final to McNeill.

Bobby Riggs won 14 tournaments in 1940 at Palm Beach, Pensacola, Miami, Augusta, US Indoors, River Oaks in Houston, Cincinnati, Fox River Valley in Neenah, Western championships in Indianapolis, Seabright, Eastern grass court championships, Pacific southwest, Pacific Coast and New Orleans.

At Seabright, Bobby Riggs had to come from two sets down to beat Frank Kovacs in the final.

Bobby Riggs won events at Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Pensacola, Chattanooga, Kansas City, Louisville, Western championships in Indianapolis, Seabright and Southampton.

Bobby Riggs's career was quickly interrupted by military service during World War II as an enlisted Navy specialist.

Bobby Riggs fairly sizzled as he racked up six straight games.

Bobby Riggs won events at Palm Springs, Phoenix, Pasadena, Chattanooga, Boston, Oyster Harbors, Wentworth-by-the-Sea, Jefferson, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City and US Pro hardcourt in Los Angeles.

Bobby Riggs finished first in the tournament series with 278 points, then Budge, Kovacs, Van Horn, Earn, Sabin, Faunce, Jossi, Perry.

Bobby Riggs told Riggs and Budge that the winner of the Professional American Singles Championship, to be held at Forest Hills, would establish the World Champion who would defend his title against Kramer.

Bobby Riggs was upset, believing that he had already established his right to be the defending world champion in a tour against Kramer.

On December 26,1947, Kramer and Bobby Riggs embarked on their long tour, beginning with an easy victory by Bobby Riggs in front of 15,000 people, who had made their way to Madison Square Garden in New York City in spite of a record snowstorm, that had brought the city to a standstill.

In many of the last matches, it was assumed by observers that Bobby Riggs frequently gave up after falling behind and let Kramer run out the victory.

Bobby Riggs won the US Pro in 1949 over Budge in four sets.

In 1951, more than 20 years before he faced Court and King, Bobby Riggs played a short series of matches against Pauline Betz.

In 1953 Bobby Riggs won at Fort Lauderdale and the PLTA fall event at Long Island.

In 1954 Bobby Riggs won events at US Pro clay court championships, Canada Pro and Eastern States Pro.

Kramer, one of the very few players who was undeniably better than Bobby Riggs, writes that there is a major "misconception" about Bobby Riggs.

Bobby Riggs didn't have the big serve, but he made up for it with some sneaky first serves and as fine a second serve as I had seen at that time.

When you talk about depth and accuracy both, Bobby Riggs' second serve ranks with the other three best that I ever saw: von Cramm's, Gonzales's, and Newcombe's.

Bobby Riggs beat Budge when Don was just a little bit past his peak.

Bobby Riggs joined the professional tennis circuit in 1941 and as a consequence was banned from competing in the amateur Grand Slams.

Bobby Riggs was famous as a hustler and gambler, when in his 1949 autobiography he wrote that he had made $105,000 in 1939 by betting in England, on himself, to win all three Wimbledon championships: the singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

In 1973, Bobby Riggs saw an opportunity to both make money and draw attention to the sport of tennis.

Bobby Riggs came out of retirement to challenge one of the world's greatest female players to a match, claiming that the female game was inferior and that a top female player could not beat him, even at the age of 55.

Bobby Riggs had originally challenged Billie Jean King, but she had declined, regarding the challenge as a fatuous gimmick.

The oddsmakers and writers favored Bobby Riggs; he built an early lead, but King won in straight sets for the $100,000 winner-take-all prize.

The ESPN program Outside the Lines made an allegation that Bobby Riggs took advantage of the overwhelming odds against King and threw the match to get his debts to the mob erased.

The program featured a man who had been silent for 40 years for reasons of self-protection who claimed that he had worked at a country club and heard several members of the mafia talking about Bobby Riggs throwing the match in exchange for cancelling his gambling debt to the mob.

Bobby Riggs was married twice, and had two sons from the first marriage, and three sons and a daughter from the second.

Bobby Riggs met his second wife, Priscilla Wheelan, on the courts of the LaGorce Country Club in Miami.

Bobby Riggs died on October 25,1995, at his home in Leucadia, Encinitas, California, aged 77.

Bobby Riggs was survived by two sons from his first marriage, three children from his second marriage, two brothers and four grandchildren.

Bobby Riggs called him shortly before his death, offering to visit him, but he did not want her to see him in his condition.