No Rigged Match : Jimmy is Favored, but Martina has an Edge in High-Stakes Pay-Per-View Showdown

In tennis, a sport where love gets you nothing, $24.95 gets you a peek at a battle of the sexes.

Martina Navratilova will try to increase women’s advantage over men when she takes on Jimmy Connors Friday in a best-of-three sets match at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The pay-per-view telecast begins at 6 p.m. Barry Tomkins, Vitas Gerulaitis, Betsy Nagelsen and Jim Hill will report. There will also be a celebrity one-set doubles match.

This is the sixth formal man-versus-woman match. On Mother’s Day, 1973, Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Court, 6-2, 6-1. Sports Illustrated put Riggs on its cover that week, with the warning, “Never bet against this man.”

But Billie Jean King proved the magazine wrong when she defeated the 55-year-old Riggs, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, four months later. The match drew a television rating of 28.1 and record-high audiences of 50 million viewers and 30,472 at the Astrodome in Houston.

But Riggs, a fast talker who readily used male chauvinism to hype his matches, wasn’t done yet. He took on a then-13-year-old Tracy Austin in 1976, and lost, 6-2.

In 1981, Riggs paired with Pancho Segura for a pair of doubles wins over little-known women professionals. At age 67 in 1985, he teamed with Vitas Gerulaitis in a 2-6, 3-6, 4-6 loss to Navratilova and Pam Shriver in a pay-per-view match.

“Bobby was too old and Vitas was not that much of a doubles player anyway,” Navratilova recalls. “It didn’t matter who Bobby would have played with. We would have won. Bobby was too much of a handicap.”

While Riggs’ handicap was age, Ilie Nastase was limited to one serve instead of two and had to defend the doubles alleys in a 1975 loss to Evonne Goolagong.

Connors will be under similar limitations Friday, although Navratilova has only been given half of the 4 1/2-foot doubles alley.

Navratilova, 35, admits she does need a bit of rules edge to be competitive against Connors.

“I can’t run as fast, jump as far, I’m not as strong as Jimmy is and haven’t played against men,” Navratilova says. “When I practice against the guys at first I don’t do so well, but the more I play against those balls, the better I get. I haven’t seen that kind of ball all that much, so that’s another handicap.”

Without the advantages, Navratilova estimates she would “win a couple of games a set, but I’m not going to win a match.”

King believes getting one serve will not be much of a disadvantage to Connors and questions whether the larger court will help Navratilova.

“That’s meaningless because return of serve is his strength,” King told the Associated Press. “He has more court to cover. That could be a problem because you’re used to boundaries in your head. That will be the interesting part. Jimmy’s hit into the same boundaries since he was a kid. For Martina, it’s more space. It’s not a reflex for her.

“I think Martina can win if she serves well. If she doesn’t, she has no chance. She should play it in her head like it’s a singles court.”

Each player will receive an appearance fee, which is a highly-guarded secret, but, “nowhere near” the $500,000 the winner will receive, says Rick Kulis, president of Event Entertainment, the event’s promoter.

Both players admit that money is one of the reasons they are playing.

“(A half-million dollars) will pay a lot of lawyers’ bills,” Navratilova says, referring to costs incurred defending herself against a palimony suit by Judy Nelson, her former live-in companion.

“Playing for a half-million bucks is one important reason to do this,” Connors says. “The question is not why play, but why not?”

Another reason Connors cites is to help promote tennis.

“This kind of match will give tennis another kick in the ass,” Connors says. “All the people we’ve lost to golf in the last few years are going to have interest and come back to tennis.”

Connors, who turned 40 this month has won 109 professional singles tournaments, more than any other male player in history. He won the U.S. Open five times, Wimbledon twice and the Australian Open.

Despite all his titles, Connors, a 4-1 favorite, says he believes he has “a lot to lose” with a loss to Navratilova.

“I have a half-million bucks to lose,” says Connors, whose has almost $8.5 million in official career winnings, before endorsements, exhibitions and TeamTennis. “I have my reputation to lose.

“I feel like I’m playing on a guys team. A lot of guys might say they’re not interested now, but once I’m out there playing, they’re going to say, ‘If Connors loses, I’m going to get such hell around my house, I can’t believe it.’

“I’m playing for every guy who has a wife, every guy who is a boss, every guy who has a sister or girlfriend. And that’s going to be a lot of fun.”

The Jimmy Connors-Martina Navratilova match airs Friday at 6 p.m. on pay-per-view channels for a suggested price of $24.95. Check with your cable system for availability.