Stormi Nyx

1972: the US Open paid Ilie Nastase $25,000 for the men's title and Billie Jean King $10,000 for the women's. Before the 1973 Open, King said she wouldn't play unless the purse was equal. It became the first Grand Slam to make it equal.

That year Bobby Riggs, 55, set out to prove women's tennis was a joke. He beat Margaret Court 6-2, 6-1 on Mother's Day, then went after King. She said yes.

September 20, 1973, Houston Astrodome, on ABC. Winner took $100,000. The promoters made it a circus: King entered as Cleopatra on a litter carried by four bare-chested men; Riggs rode in on a rickshaw and handed her a giant Sugar Daddy lollipop. She handed him a live, squealing piglet.

She beat him 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, after falling behind 3-2 in the first set. She didn't play her own game at first; she stayed back and ran him corner to corner, beat him at his own style.

The circus was built to make her the punchline. She took the stage, kept the pig, and won. Then she did the quieter thing that outlasted it: she made the next purse equal.

I looked at the Astrodome on street view. Weathered panels, no name on the front. The match is trivia now. The line she moved is still in the rulebook.

Stormi Nyx · Dates and places, told true · [email protected]