Navratilova, Shriver Swat Down Chauvinists

For those who support women’s tennis--and womankind in general--this was a moment they had dreamed about for the past 12 months.

No, Vitas Gerulaitis hadn’t been served up before them on a silver platter, with a tennis ball lodged in his mouth. But it was the next best thing--Gerulaitis in front of a bank of microphones, with really nothing to say, his mind struggling to comprehend what a couple of opponents named Martina and Pam had just done to him Friday night.

The much-ballyhooed “Challenge” doubles match was history. The women, Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver, had just defeated the men, Gerulaitis and Bobby Riggs--and it wasn’t even close. Before 8,580 spectators at the Atlantic City Convention Center and perhaps a couple of million television viewers, the males were swept away in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4.

The women divided the winner’s share of $300,000, with Navratilova’s half being donated to her charity, the Martina Children’s Foundation. The men split $200,000--and the evening’s humiliation.

The result made a joke of those disparaging words Gerulaitis uttered at last year’s U.S. Open against the game of women’s tennis. You remember: “95% of the women can’t play,” and how the men’s No. 100-ranked player would embarrass the women’s No. 1, that person being Navratilova.

Late Friday night, Gerulaitis was trying hard to forget.

After directing a couple of compliments toward the winners (“They played better than expected”) and rising to the defense of the 67-year-old Riggs (“For Bobby to walk out on the court at 67, let alone play, it was a pretty good effort”), Gerulaitis was at a loss. Eventually, he found himself reduced to the loser’s traditional last resort: Claiming a misquote.

“All the comments I made before were totally drawn out of context,” Gerulaitis sputtered. “And I’m not going to get into that again. This had nothing to do with men against women.”

Oh? And for what other reason did this battle of the sexes doubles match actually materialize?

Gerulaitis didn’t stick around to answer any more questions. Interrupting a comment by Shriver, Gerulaitis stood up from his seat, grinned impishly and informed the press that “I’m gonna go home now and beat the bleep out of myself.”

And with that, he skipped out of the interview room.

Gerulaitis needn’t bother. For about 90 minutes on the tennis court, Navratilova and Shriver took care of that for him.

The male chauvinists are in the midst of one whale of a losing streak. In 1973, Riggs was a straight-sets loser in the Houston Astrodome against Billie Jean King. Then Friday, he came back to join Gerulaitis in another embarrassment at the hands of an opponent in skirts.

That’s a 12-year slump.

And what did the latest defeat prove? Oh, maybe the same thing King proved in ‘73--that an over-the-hill men’s tennis champion is no match for a woman still playing in her prime.

“I don’t think it proved anything,” Navratilova said. “Except that maybe Bobby is too old.”

Or maybe it proved that two top-ranked women’s players are better than one top-ranked men’s player. That’s basically what the match amounted to--a double-team job on Gerulaitis.

Riggs was virtually no help to Gerulaitis, at all. In younger days, Riggs used to hustle opponents in “handicap matches”--playing matches with chairs placed on his side of the net as obstacles or while toting around a gorilla on a leash.

This time, Riggs was the obstacle.

Wearing a baseball cap, thick eyeglasses, two hearing-aids and carrying an industrial-sized racket, Riggs looked pitifully out of place. He was overwhelmed by passing shots, his returns of serve barely cleared the net and his overheads packed all the wallop of a powder puff. It got so that the crowd cheered loudly whenever Riggs would do anything right--treating him like the slow, knock-kneed kid on the block who was always picked last for stickball.

“I thought Bobby would hit better and move around more,” Navratilova said. “He was just too weak. Even if he could move to the ball, his overheads couldn’t crack an egg.”

That left Gerulaitis pretty much on his own. In an effort to keep the match as close as it was, he would step in front of Riggs and around him to knock back volleys. In the tennis vernacular, this is known as poaching.

It didn’t much help. While Gerulaitis ran himself ragged, the women resolutely held serve--winning four games at love and six others at 15. The men had only one break point all night--in the eighth game of the third set--but couldn’t capitalize.

Afterward, Riggs was left to do what he does best: Talk.

“Am I embarrassed? Not at all,” he said. “It’s no disgrace to lose to the world champions. Both players were sharp, especially Martina, as she is supposed to be. And we lost the last two sets by just one service break in each. If we win those, maybe it goes five sets.

“But now the girls are heroines. ‘We beat the men.’ Now they can ask, ‘Will Vitas keep his mouth shut?’ ”

It was awfully quiet Friday night. And as for Riggs, was this finally the last of all his great hustles?

Guess again.

“You want to play me for $1,000 tomorrow,” asked Riggs.