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Sunday, April 22, 2001

Berry Campagna, a champion for women's tennis the past five decades, still looks back at Billie Jean King's victory against Bobby Riggs nearly 30 years ago as a defining moment in the growth of the sport.

"It was big, very big," said Campagna, 70, who recently received the Mangan Award given by the United States Tennis Association's Middle States section for "her significant contributions to the game of tennis."

She is a board member of the USTA's Allegheny Mountain District and is a former president of the organization. Campagna served as a Middle States Girls' ranking chair for 14 years and heads the Adult Competition Committee and the district's Wheelchair Tennis Committee.

Growing up in New Orleans, Campagna had no women role models in tennis and no organized teams to play for in high school and later at Tulane.

"Women's tennis wasn't that well organized," she said. "It wasn't easy being a woman playing tennis."

That's why Campagna was rooting hard for King that Sept. 20 night in 1973 in what was billed as the "Battle of the Sexes" at the Astrodome in Houston. In front of 30,472 -- the largest crowd to watch a tennis match -- and an estimated world-wide television audience of 40 million, King defeated Riggs, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

"I wanted women to be recognized in tennis," said Campagna, who has lived in Greensburg the past 30 years. "Until then, we were nothing. All women were rooting for Billie Jean King. I knew she would win. That really helped women's tennis."

After a pause, she added: "I don't think Billie Jean could have beaten a young, ranked man. But Bobby Riggs? He had a lot of guts to even challenge Billie Jean King. Riggs had had his day."

But Riggs, a showman with shtick, transformed the match into a circus. Riggs, the consummate hustler and master of hyperbole and hype, had psyched out Margaret Court six months earlier, 6-2, 6-1.

"Margaret Court wasn't Billie Jean King," Campagna said. " Court was good, but Billie Jean had much more fight in her. She was more determined."

King's victory gave women's tennis instant credibility, catapulting the sport into the sporting mainstream.

"I'm proud of women's tennis, the way it has advanced," said Campagna, a tireless worker in promoting and helping to develop youth programs and leagues for more advanced players in the district. "Tennis is coming back. Women's tennis is really coming back."

Today's role models are the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati.

"People always are looking at Anna Kournikova," Campagna said. "She's beautiful, but ...

"Billie Jean King is the most competitive women's player I've ever seen."

Campagna manages to play at least three times a week at the Oxford Athletic Club East in Monroeville.

"My knees are giving out," she said with a laugh. "But I still love to play."

She received the Mangan Award at the annual Middle States Conference in Hershey, March 3-5.

"It's so prestigious ... an award I thought I'd never win," she said. "When they called my name, I couldn't get out of my chair. It was a total surprise. I think I was the only one in the room who didn't know."

Campus courts

Duquesne, seeded fifth, finished in fifth place in the Atlantic 10 Conference men's tournament at Oxford Athletic Club East in Monroeville. St. Bonaventure won the team championship to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I tournament.

The Dukes won two of three matches, losing to George Washington in the quarterfinals and defeating Dayton and Rhode Island in the consolation bracket.

Duquesne's David Brady was 2-0 in No. 1 singles and 3-0 in No. 1 doubles with partner Paul Tran. Jason Mayer, a senior from Gateway High School, was 1-2 in No. 2 singles and 2-1 in No. 2 doubles.

*UCLA (19-1), is No. 1 in men's NCAA Division I and Stanford (22-0) is No. 1 in the women's division in the latest WingspanBank.com Collegiate rankings.

Stanford's Alex Kim is top-ranked in men's singles and Stanford's Laura Granville is top-ranked in women's singles.