*RARE* Jack Kramer Tennis Racket Signed By BOBBY RIGGS

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RARE Jack Kramer Tennis Racket Signed By BOBBY RIGGS

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Sold Date: 08/03/2008
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Natural History

Donâe(tm)t Miss Out On Owning A Piece Of Tennis History!

For Auction is an Authenticated Jack Kramer Tennis Racket Signed By BOBBY RIGGS One Month Before His Death IN 1995.

This Item is being auctioned by a member of the Riggs family and is Authenticated and Notarized. It is starting with an extremely low bid of only $70.00 with no reserve! T is a very limited number of Rackets signed by Bobby left that the family will auction. The remainder are being saved by family members.

Bobby Riggs

GRAND SLAM RECORD

Wimbledon Singles 1939

Doubles 1939

Mixed 1939

French Singles finalist 1939

U.S. Singles 1939, 41

Singles finalist 1940

Mixed 1940

Mixed finalist 1941

TOURNAMENT RECORD (ex: Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Olympics)

Davis Cup Team Member 1938, 39

Chronological Listing of Enshrinees 2003-1955

Despite his Wimbledon Grand Slam win and his admiral career on the courts, Riggs is probably best known for

the disparaging remarks he made during women's tennis competitions. Branded a "chauvinist pig," after

claiming that "any half-decent male player could defeat even the best female players".

He came out of retirement for the challenge!

Bobby Riggs By Jack Kramer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bobby Riggs on the cover of Sports Illustrated just before his match with Billie Jean King in 1973

Robert Larimore ("Bobby") Riggs ( February 25 , 1918 âe" October 25 , 1995 ) was a 1930sâe"40s tennis player who was the World No. 1 or the co-World No. 1 player for three years, first as an amateur in 1941, then as a professional in 1946 and 1947. It is quite possible that he was also, unofficially, the best player in 1945 as well. He played his first professional tennis match on December 26, 1941.

After being mostly forgotten for many years, he gained far more fame in 1973 at the age of 55 by challenge matches against two of the top female players in the world. " The Battle of the Sexes " match against Billie Jean King was one of the most famous tennis events of all time.

Jack Kramer calls Riggs in his 1979 autobiography "the most underrated of all the top players" and says, perhaps surprisingly, that he considers Riggs to be one of the 6 best players of all time. He goes on to say that at his best Riggs was probably even better than Pancho Gonzales , a man still considered by some to have been the greatest player of all time. [1]

Legitimate career

Riggs was born in Los Angeles, California , the son of a minister and one of 6 siblings. He was an excellent table tennis player as a boy and when he began playing tennis at age 11 he was quickly befriended and then coached by Esther Bartosh, who was the third-ranking woman player in Los Angeles . Depending entirely on speed and ball control, he soon began to win boys (through 15 years old) and then juniors (through 18 years old) tournaments. Although it is sometimes said that Riggs was one of the great tennis players nurtured by Perry T. Jones and the Southern California Tennis Association, Riggs writes in his autobiography that for many years Jones considered Riggs to be too small and not powerful enough to be a top-flight player. (Kramer, however, says in his autobiography that Jones turned against Riggs "for being a kid hustler.") [2] After initially helping Riggs, tfore, Jones then refused to sponsor him in the important Eastern tournaments. With the help of Bartosh and other mentors, however, Riggs played in various national tournaments and by the time he was 16 was the number 5-ranked junior player in the United States . The next year he won his first national championship, winning the National Juniors by beating Joe Hunt in the finals. That same year, 1935, he met Hunt in 17 final-round matches and won all 17 of them.

At 18 Riggs was still a junior but won the Southern California men's title and then...