Men can have a huge turnover of sponsorship and still survive a lot better than the women. But the women’s ratings are better, at least at home in the United States than in the men’s tennis.
BILLIE JEAN KINGI like putting money back into what made my life, and tennis has been great to me.
More Billie Jean King Quotes
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Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.
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In 1973, women got 59 cents on the dollar; now we are getting 74 cents on the dollar. In the area of finance and business, we are at 68 cents on the dollar.
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Reputation is what others think about you. What’s far more important is character, because that is what you think about yourself.
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Ask Nureyev to stop dancing, ask Sinatra to stop singing, then you can ask me to stop playing.
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The trouble with being number one in the world – in anything- is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position, and that is something of a driving, perfectionist attitude, so that once you do achieve number one, you don’t relax and enjoy it.
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Everyone has people in their lives that are gay, lesbian or transgender or bisexual. They may not want to admit it, but I guarantee they know somebody.
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If you have one gay experience, does that mean you’re gay? If you have one heterosexual experience, does that mean you’re straight? Life doesn’t work quite so cut and dried.
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Don’t worry about what people say.
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Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.
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When they take surveys of women in business, of the Fortune 500, the successful women, 80% of them, say they were in sports as a young woman.
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I always liked co-ed events best so we have two men and two women on each team.
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Men still get a lot more opportunity. It is still a big part of the old boy network… They have more companies they can get money from.
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When people tell you not to believe in your dreams, and they say “Why?”, say “Why not?
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I have a lot to say, and if I’m not No. 1, I can’t say it.
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No one changes the world who isn’t obsessed.
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Martina and I went through a very bad five years. Everything’s very good between us now, but it was a long haul.
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It’s really impossible for athletes to grow up. On the one hand, you’re still a child, still playing a game. But on the other hand, you’re a superhuman hero that everyone dreams of being. No wonder we have such a hard time understanding who we are.
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Champions take responsibility.
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There is no life for girls in team sports past Little League. I got into tennis when I realized this, and because I thought golf would be too slow for me, and I was too scared to swim.
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You just know where to put the ball. You just feel it. It has been computed into your brain so many times it is there.
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You have got to want to be the best before you can even begin to reach for that goal, and you have got to be prepared to sacrifice a lot to get there.
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Trust and respect is something you earn, not something that is given.
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You do have to get players every year. You have to deal with calendar. You have to deal with all kinds of things in our sport, like every sport does.
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That’s why my place in the all-time rankings means so very little to me, because I know I won’t be anybody’s number one, and it’s that same old thing: if you’re not number one, then what does it really matter?
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I will tell you King’s First Law of Recognition: You never get it when you want it, and then when it comes, you get too much.
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Pressure is a privilege – it only comes to those who earn it.
BILLIE JEAN KING