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Billie Jean King (center) and Rosie Casals (to her right) are pictured here with Jamie Lee Curtis, Stacey Allaster, Ilana Kloss, Maria Sharapova and Magic Johnson at the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Ceremony Honoring King on April 07, 2025, in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
You could say that Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals have really hit it out of the park. Both went from first being introduced to tennis as kids in public parks in New York City and San Francisco, respectively, to having legendary, ground-breaking careers in the sport. And the two members of one of the most successful doubles team in history recently talked to me about how having such free access to tennis at early ages really helped them and how it could \u201cserve\u201d the careers and health of so many kids around the country.<\/p>\n
King And Casals Played Big Parts In The 27th Annual City Park Foundation Tennis Benefit<\/p>\n
Both King and Casals were at the 27th annual City Parks Foundation Tennis Benefit<\/a>, held on Tuesday during\u2014not coincidentally\u2014the opening week of the 2025 U.S. Open. The event occurred at the U.S. Open at what is named the United States Tennis Association Billie Jean King National Tennis Center\u2014again not coincidentally because King has been kind of a big deal for tennis. She has not only won 39 Grand Slam titles, 12 in singles, 16 in women\u2019s doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles but has also helped grow the sport and made it more accessible to many more people. She, along with a guy named John McEnroe, co-chaired this year\u2019s event. King\u2019s name is also on the annual Billie Jean King Junior Achievement Award, which CityParks Tennis Lacoste Junior Academy player Laleshka Alvarez received during the event for 2025.<\/p>\n And Casals, a majors champion 12 times over and tennis groundbreaker in many ways, along with Brian Snerson, the co-founder of Essex Wealth Management, were the benefit\u2019s two big honorees. Casals has long stood out for tennis, not just because of her uniquely colorful clothing when she was winning tennis titles, but more on that later. Snerson, meanwhile, has long supported CPF, initiating JPMorgan Chase\u2019s multi-year presenting sponsorship of CityParks Tennis while he was at the bank and helping launch the first CityParks Tennis Benefit in 1998. This earned him the 2025 Vitas Gerulaitis Community Service Award, presented to Snerson during the event.<\/p>\n The annual benefit helps raise funds for City Parks Foundation<\/a> so that CPF can continue to offer free tennis programs for youth across all five boroughs of New York City. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the largest such programs in the country, reaching or expecting to reach over 5,000 kids this year,\u201d explained Mike Silverman, Director of Sports for CPF, \u201cThe mission of the program is to make tennis accessible to any child in New York who wants to learn. We have a pyramid program of different program levels: beginners, intermediate, and advanced.\u201d<\/p>\n Pictured from left to right during ta 2024 City Parks Foundation event are Mike Silverman, City Parks Foundation Director of Sports, Jean Troubh, 2024 recipient of the Vitas Gerulaitis Community Service Award and CPF Board Executive Chair, Sean Dicks, 2024 recipient of the Billie Jean King Junior Achievement Award, Billie Jean King, CityParks Tennis Benefit Co-Chair and CPF Board Member and Lindsay Davenport, 2024 recipient of the Vitas Gerulaitis Community Service Award (Photo: Sylvester Zawadzki).<\/p>\n Sylvester Zawadzki.<\/p>\n King Helped Find Ways To Support The City Park Foundation Tennis Program<\/p>\n Both Silverman and King told me about how King first got involved with the CPF. It was in 1990s when the NYC government was making big budget cuts. This included slicing the free tennis programs being offered in NYC parks. And since such free programs require, you know, money to run, Silverman, who was already involved in the NYC parks sports program, approached King, whom he already knew, for ideas on how to keep things going for the City Parks initiative.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a Hilton Head under the pouring rain, when I ran into Mike Silverman and asked how\u2019s it going,\u201d recalled King. \u201cWe got in the car and talked. He said, \u2018Yeah, they are cutting my budget.\u2019 And I said, \u2019Let\u2019s get back together and discuss in New York City.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Once they were back in NYC, King did the opposite of rain on the tennis program\u2019s parade. She suggested going to the U.S. Tennis Association. The USTA, in turn, offered free space at the U.S. Open tennis venue as well as free tickets to the U.S Open to help with fundraising for the parks program. \u201cThe USTA has come through huge,\u201d said King. \u201cWe\u2019re very fortunate that every USTA President since then has continued to offer such help.\u201d<\/p>\n King Got Started On Public Tennis Courts<\/p>\n When you talk to King, it quickly becomes apparent how passionate she is about tennis and getting more and more people to play the sport more and more. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like the feeling of when the ball hits the strings on your racket,” she explained. \u201cI play two to three times a week. It\u2019s so much fun, sets me free again. There\u2019s something magical about it.\u201d Oh, and even when you want to keep talking about her and her illustrious career, she turns the conversation back to you, asking you about the last time you played tennis and saying, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get you back on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n King\u2019s first ever tennis court was a public one in New York City. \u201cI got free instruction from Clyde Walker,\u201d King recalled. \u201cAfter that session, I knew what I would do with my life. I wanted to be the best tennis in the world. I did not waver one moment.\u201d And that, folks, is exactly what ended up happening as King occupied the top women\u2019s singles spot for the majority (six of 10 years) of the decade spanning from 1966 to 1975. Not only that, she along with Casals was part of the Original Nine women who signed tennis contracts with Gladys Heldman in Houston, Texas, on September 23, 1970. This led to women having their own tennis tour, which eventually became what is today\u2019s Women\u2019s Tennis Association. So, all of the professional women\u2019s tennis players of today can thank King and Casals for what at the time was a pretty \u201cballsy\u201d move.<\/p>\n Even though King went on to win a lot of tournaments, like a lot a lot, her parents never really forced the needed competitive fire upon her or her brother Randy Moffitt, who ended being a top relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. \u201cMy parents never asked us if we won,\u201d she explained. \u201cDad just asked if we tried our best. Because our parents didn\u2019t put pressure on us, we loved pressure. It makes you think better, sharper. My parents just wanted us to get exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n King wasn\u2019t the only tennis superstar initially raised on public courts. She mentioned a bunch of others like Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, McEnroe and the Williams sisters (Serena and Venus). And, of course, there\u2019s Casals, whom King described as, \u201cPound for pound the most talented tennis player I have seen. She\u2019s five-foot-two-a quarter in height and she always empathizes the quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n Casals Got Started On Public Tennis Courts Too<\/p>\n Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals were one of the most successful women’s doubles team in history. (Photo: Bettman Archive)<\/p>\n Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n Long before she began making her own racket on the world stage, Casals first learned to play tennis in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. There she got to meet stars like Jack Kramer, Ken Rosewall, Maureen Connolly and Pancho Gonzales. \u201cThey were teaching us little kids tennis,\u201d Casals recalled. \u201cSo, it was a real eye-opener for me, coming from the wrong side of the tracks. Our neighborhood never knew anything about tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n Casals went on to say, \u201cIt\u2019s provided so many opportunities to play, to meet other kids and other people along the way who made a difference in certainly in my career,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had the friends of Golden Gate Park who were terrific to me in helping me raise funds to send me back East and to play nationals and eventually Forest Hills. So it kind of opened my eyes to many, many things, I was fortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n Those public tennis courts were the opening Casals\u2019 very successful singles career, as she reached number three in the world in 1970 and ranked in the U.S. Women\u2019s Top Five for 11 consecutive years. Those courts were the opening to an even more successful doubles career, as Casals ended up capturing a dozen Grand Slam doubles titles, including five at the U.S. Open and seven at Wimbledon. In fact, with a total of 112 professional doubles titles, she ranks behind only Martina Navratilova for the most in history. She and Billie Jean King were a particularly formidable duo, capturing the Wimbledon crown five times. But according to King, Casals\u2019 biggest doubles accomplishment was being the doubles partner of Ilie N\u0103stase. No not winning two Wimbledon mixed doubles titles with N\u0103stase. But simply being his partner since N\u0103stase was pretty well-known for his antics on court.<\/p>\n Casals has continued to be an advocate for tennis via her company, Sportswoman Inc., by promoting different women\u2019s tennis-related events and programs. \u201cTennis really gave me a life, gave me an identity,\u201d said Casals. \u201cSomething to care about and love even to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting Kids Started On Tennis Can Bring Lifetime Health Benefits<\/p>\n Both King and Silverman referred to tennis as the \u201cworld\u2019s healthiest sport,\u201d which was the slogan of the 2024 U.S. Open, as I covered in Forbes last year<\/a>. That moniker was based in part on a study published in 2018 in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings<\/a> that found that among 8,577 Copenhagen, Denmark, residents, those who had regularly played tennis lived nearly \u201ctennish\u201d (an average of 9.7 years) longer than those who had remained sedentary. That was a greater jump in life expectancy than what was associated with other sports like soccer (4.7 years longer), cycling (3.7 years), swimming (3.4 years), jogging (3.2 years), calisthenics, (3.1 years) and health club activities (1.5 years).<\/p>\n Tennis is also a sport that you can keep playing throughout much of your life. While you won\u2019t see too many 70 or 80 year olds playing American football or doing gymnastics, it\u2019s quite common for older adults to be regualrly playing the sport. Both Casals and King still play tennis, King two to three times a week, Casals at least three times a week.<\/p>\n But to enjoy all that tennis has to offer, you\u2019ve got to somehow get started in the sport, This isn\u2019t always easy since getting started isn\u2019t necessarily DIY or \u201cdo it yourself.\u201d Many places and communities around the country have historically lacked decent quality tennis courts and tennis instruction. There\u2019s a need for more programs like those offered by the City Parks Foundation to give kids from a broader range of backgrounds the opportunity to learn and play tennis. All of this is in line with the USTA\u2019s ongoing nationwide efforts to expand access to the sport, as I\u2019ve covered earlier this year in Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Expanding access to tennis will certainly help find the next generation of tennis champions. After all, becoming a champion requires a unique drive and grit that you don\u2019t just find every day. \u201cYou\u2019re going to find the hungry kids in public parks in places where things are not just given to you,\u201d Casals emphasized.<\/p>\n Of course, most kids who pick up tennis rackets aren\u2019t going to become the next King or Casals. Only a very small percentage of tennis players end up making it to the professional ranks, let alone becoming game changers in the sport. That doesn\u2019t mean that playing tennis won\u2019t serve them well, though. Armed with the emotional, mental and physical benefits that tennis has to offer, they could end hitting it out of the park in so many other ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billie Jean King (center) and Rosie Casals (to her right) are pictured here with Jamie Lee Curtis, Stacey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,1804,72675,72673,54716,6662,72674,72672,85,747,49529,32455],"class_list":["post-99602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-billie-jean-king","tag-billie-jean-king-national-tennis-center","tag-city-parks-foundation","tag-cpf","tag-john-mcenroe","tag-public-tennis-courts","tag-rosie-casals","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open","tag-usta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}