GRASS VALLEY, Calif. — Larry W. King, Billie Jean King’s ex-husband who helped create the WTA Tour and the Battle of the Sexes tennis match, died Friday. He was 81 years outdated.
King died at dwelling from prostate most cancers, his spouse, Nancy Bolger King, stated.
Larry King and Billie Jean King met at California State College, Los Angeles and married in 1965. Billie Jean King acknowledged him as “one of many unsung heroes of the institution of girls’s skilled tennis within the early Seventies.”
“Larry’s intelligence, love, dedication and humor have allowed me to have a profession spanning greater than 20 years,” Billie Jean King stated in a press release, including, “We’ve got been married for 22 years and have been in enterprise collectively for many years. He was concerned behind the scenes when the Unique 9 signed a $1 deal, and he and I co-owned a number of tournaments on the Virginia Slims Tour.”
Collectively, Larry and Billie Jean King based World Crew Tennis, as Billie Jean had lengthy been within the crew format of the game. Larry King designed colourful courts and revamped the scoring system that helped popularize the game.
He performed a serious function within the breakthrough of girls’s tennis in 1973. The WTA Tour was established that yr, after which King defeated Bobby Riggs within the “Battle of the Sexes.” This match stays essentially the most watched tennis match in historical past.
Larry and Billie Jean King divorced in 1987. He then married Nancy Bolger King, whom he met on a ladies’s tour within the late Eighties. A number of years later, they moved to Grass Valley, the place he co-founded Curler Hockey Worldwide, an expert curler hockey league performed on inline skates, and the Bridge Professional Tour, an expert bridge tour.
Along with his spouse, King is survived by his son, Skye King, and daughter, Katie King, and their households.
