Doubles Battle of the Sexes? From 1985?

[Kevin Patrick]

Any one hear of this? I wasn't aware of it. Riggs must have been close to 70 at the time.

"In 1985, Gerulaitis got back and teamed-up with Bobby Riggs to launch a challenge to female players after the famous Battle of Sexes. However, the stunt was short-lived when Gerulaitis and Riggs lost a doubles match against Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver."

"Riggs took his last shot at beating women at tennis, when he and Vitas Gerulaitis lost a doubles match 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitas_Gerulaitis

 

[Grimjack]

Watched it. Boring as ####, and the commentators made a big deal of the fact that the big drama would be whether the women could handle Vitas's serve. Vitas, of course, was already washed up by that time, and nonetheless still put out about 25% effort. His serves would have been returnable by decent club players.

To this day, it's two hours of my life I wish I had back. If only I could go back in time and cut my toenails or something, instead.

 

[GOAT]

How come stunts like this aren't being pulled in today's game? I, for one, would think this kind of thing would provide great entertainment.

 

[35ft6]

How come stunts like this aren't being pulled in today's game? I, for one, would think this kind of thing would provide great entertainment.

Because the women's game has absolutely nothing to gain and a lot to lose. They're already the world's highest paid female athletes, why would Serena and Venus want to get ripped apart by John and Pat Mac on par-per-view. There's a lot of people who think that Serena can beat Mac, and allowing people to keep thinking that adds to the prestige of the women's game.

 

[adamc637]

He died from CO poisoning. How sad.

 

[VamosRafa]

Man, you'd think we are in the off-season already, with these discussions. But I generally expect these to pop in in late November????

 

[snoflewis]

i would really like to see serena and roddick go against federer and sharapova...that would be pretty interesting.