World Team Tennis, the starry mixed league founded by Billie Jean King, gets another reboot

World Team Tennis (WTT), the celebrated mixed-gender team tennis league of the 1970s whose founders included Billie Jean King, will relaunch at the end of this season.

Women’s world No. 5 Jessica Pegula will lead this iteration, as part of a roster of yet-to-be-confirmed top-10 and top-20 ATP and WTA players, most of them from the U.S. The first matches will be played December 2, at the Barclays Center in New York City, home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty of the WNBA.

There will then be a home-and-away competition throughout December, featuring city-based teams. This iteration of WTT has been scheduled to coincide with the ATP and WTA off-season, which runs from the end of November to the end of December.

The original version took place between 1974 and 1978. Matches were played in the middle of the tennis season, with leading players such as Chris Evert even missing the French Open to take part. Under King’s leadership, the event became known for its glitz, glamor and experimentation. There were deciding points at deuce, stars being substituted mid-match, players wearing shirts with names on their backs and no handshakes. King, Evert, Björn Borg, Rod Laver, Evonne Goolagong, Martina Navratilova, Jimmy Connors and many more of the sport’s household names took part.

There have been various iterations since, but the last WTT season was in 2021, when five teams played 12 matches each between November 13 and November 28.

Each match in the 2026 version will include four singles sets — two men’s and two women’s —with deciding points at deuce, followed by a mixed doubles tiebreak, played to 10 points. The tiebreak will be played regardless of the match score after the four singles sets, and play will be continuous, with the aim to fit all five matches into around two and a half hours.

Organizers said in a news release that this format ensures that men and women contribute equally to the outcome of each match, and just as in the original iteration, players will compete on behalf of teams named for cities in the U.S.

King represented the Philadelphia Freedoms during the 1970s run, which inspired her close friend Elton John’s song, “Philadelphia Freedom,” that topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1975.

WTT was first established a year after King and fellow women’s players in 1973 set up the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA); King then defeated former Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion Bobby Riggs in their fabled “Battle of the Sexes” match later that same year. Men’s and women’s stars playing on the same court together remains one of tennis’ most compelling features, especially in mixed doubles. The U.S. Open recently overhauled its competition, moving it to the opening week of the tournament, before the singles main draws start, to help encourage the discipline’s stars to play.

The most recent “Battle of the Sexes,” played by women’s world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and 2022 Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios last December, drew criticism for its lack of reckoning with the name’s history. Following a 6-3, 6-3 defeat, Sabalenka said in a news conference that she “did not understand how people were able to find something negative.”

And although there has long been equal prize money at the Grand Slams, gender inequity remains. At last year’s Cincinnati Open, a combined ATP and WTA tournament one rung below the four majors, the men’s prize pot was $9.2 million compared to $5.1 million for the women. The French Open, which starts Sunday, has been criticized for seldom putting women’s matches in its vaunted night session on Court Philippe-Chatrier, the biggest court at Roland Garros.

In a statement on the latest iteration of WTT, King said: “I couldn’t be more excited about a modernized vision for World Team Tennis. This league has always been about innovation and making tennis more accessible. It’s inspiring to see that spirit carried forward in a way that connects with how fans engage with sports today.”

The new version will attempt to capture the innovative spirit of the 1970s “with real-time augmented reality ball tracking and advanced data visualization,” organizers said in a news release. This will be provided by Hawk-Eye Innovations’ Electronic Line Calling (ELC) technology, which is used on the ATP and WTA Tours and at three of the four Grand Slams.

One thing that will not be there is the striking four-colored court from the 1970s, in which the service boxes, doubles alleys, and the area between the service boxes and the baselines were all different colors. The original court had no lines, but this was adjusted in later editions.

Michael Davies, an Emmy Award-winning producer known for “Jeopardy!” and “Watch What Happens Live,” and Embassy Row will produce event coverage. A broadcast partner has not yet been agreed; a spokesperson for the event said it was “in advanced discussions with media companies re: distribution, and will be announcing our partner soon.”

Players will be provided with equity in the emerging league, with base fees and win bonuses paid to those competing during a vanishingly small off-season. The organizers did not share specifics on the equity structure, but described it as “similar to other emerging leagues.”

Pegula, who has been central to the attempts to rework tennis’ crammed schedule on the WTA Tour, as the head of its Tour Architecture Council, said in the news release: “I think fans are going to have a lot of fun with this. The matches are shorter, the team energy is different, and having players share in the ownership of the  league also creates a deeper level of commitment.”

End-of-season exhibitions in cities such as Miami and New York have proved popular in the past few years, with smaller rosters of players often competing in singles and then mixed doubles, but a fully fledged league, in however short a timeframe, is a different undertaking

“Additional announcements surrounding players, teams, venues, partnerships, and fan experiences will be unveiled in the coming months,” WTT said.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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