COURT HUSTLER

by Bobby & George McGann Riggs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 1973

Bobby Riggs is news and his book will sell, just as will those tickets to the $100,000 winner-take-all match with Billie Jean King -- ""the Libber versus the Lobber"" in Riggs parlance -- scheduled for the Astrodome later this month. Bobby's story -- how a 55 year-old tennis has-been ""with one foot in the grave"" became sports' No. 1 attraction and (self-anointed) top male chauvinist ""in the world"" -- begins appropriately with the Margaret Court wipe-out (""I intended to soft-ball her to death"" and indeed he did, 6-1, 6-2), then a review of his early and very successful tennis career as an amateur (""shamateurism"") and later a less illustrious fling with the pros, the turn to golf (a different racket where hustling meant beating the odds), and finally the return to tennis via the seniors route and the current prominence. En route, Bobby, whose mouth rates a close No. 2 to Muhammad Ali's, gabs about the bets he's made and won, what's wrong with Wimbledon, his marriages and divorces (no more of the former but ""I'm not ready to block out all the other action""), homosexuality on the tour, and of course Mrs. King (you've got a long way to go, baby). An inspiration for all men who long ago gave up fighting onsetting potgut and the old lady.

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION