King Says Comments Hurt Her

Everything was going so well for Billie Jean King on Thursday morning.

She was at a gathering, not far from Wimbledon, making an announcement that the British company Shock Absorber would make up the $70,000 difference in prize money between the men’s singles champion and the women’s singles champion here this year.

King, captain of the U.S. Fed Cup team, remained fine, even when questions turned to the Fed Cup controversy, her dispute with Lindsay Davenport. She told her side of it, saying that Davenport had known May 19 that she wasn’t going to be on the team.

It was a classic “she-said, she-said” standoff.

King said she was “hurt” and that it was “unfortunate” and “inappropriate” for Davenport to have aired her side in news conferences during Wimbledon. She said they finally spoke on the phone a couple of days ago.

But King stumbled into unforced-error territory when she was asked about Davenport’s request to arrive a day late because her mother was having knee surgery.

Since last year’s Jennifer Capriati controversy -- King dismissed Capriati from the team after a dispute about practice partners -- King has refused to bend team rules. Although a mother’s knee surgery could be considered an unusual circumstance, King said: “If you know you want to play Fed Cup, do you think her mother could have done that operation some other time? That’s a question I didn’t get into with her.”

-- Lisa Dillman