The year was 1973, when 55-year-old Bobby Riggs was playing 29-year-old Billie Jean King in a rematch of the ‘Battle of the Sexes’. Riggs had previously beaten Margaret Court only months earlier. The idea emerged from the women’s tennis players’ demand for equal pay – for a similar (or higher) viewership they were getting compared to the men’s tournament.Tennis, widely considered as the loneliest outdoor sport, wasn’t about the individual for once. King was playing for the future of women in the game, who might be shut out of equal opportunities if she couldn’t beat a retired men’s player of two decades.King eventually did beat Riggs by being a smarter athlete – prolonging rallies, giving little momentum to the ball causing Riggs to expend more energy in trying to hit the ball back into play, and wearing him out. She got a hint that her ploy was working once Riggs’ jacket came off after he lost the first set.By winning in straight sets, King would become a key face of America’s feminist movement, which was picking up steam in the 1970s thanks to names like Gloria Steinem. The match wasn’t about finding physiological differences between male and female athletes, but King’s victory did, however, nullify questions about the professionalism of female tennis players. They were here to compete – hence, they should get an equal share of the revenue generated by the sport.This victory is deservedly the centre-piece in a rousing documentary directed by Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff. But the film also pokes further – to paint a flattering portrait of King’s presence in professional sports, and the impact she had on the social justice discourse.A still from ‘Give me the ball!’What’s fascinating about King’s story is how she did everything a professional sportsperson is advised not to do. Taking stands on social issues, being vocal on ‘controversial’ topics off the court, pointing out the inconsistencies of bodies running the game.‘Form’ can be fleeting for most athletes and the slightest dip can be blamed on this additional baggage of being a social justice warrior. King not only managed to be a vocal advocate for women’s liberation on the tennis court, but also remained significant in competitions, lending weight to her statements to the press. Turns out, the more pressure she was surrounded by, the better she became as a player.Garbus and Wolff’s film is starstruck by their subject, but they also provide enough evidence for it. Born in a conservative Methodist family in southern California, where she was encouraged by her mother to be more ‘feminine’, an adolescent Billie was happier playing sport. It was at the age of nine that she was introduced to tennis by a classmate, and she found out she was a natural.It’s where Billie Jean Moffitt met her future husband Larry King, who dropped out of biochemistry to pursue a degree in law. Shortly out of college, at the tender age of 22, Billie Jean Moffitt married Larry King – someone who saw the discriminatory attitude towards women in society, which was more than one could expect from the average man of the time.Garbus and Wolff lean heavily on King’s frankness to ensure that their film isn’t a series of platitudes – and King comes through more than once.She opens up about her state of mind in 1973, when she was a representative of the women’s tennis association responsible for finding sponsors for tournaments when the women broke away from the establishment, when she was trying to manage her tennis career, her personal endorsement deals and her marriage, while also wrestling with her sexuality. She loved women too, something she hadn’t found the courage to admit to herself, let alone the world.King accepts it was one of the most stressful times in her career, something that metastasised into an eating disorder – where she would binge on the night of a tournament.King was always an inclusive, large-hearted, selfless person – we find out about that in the manner she speaks for the black women playing tennis, who weren’t given a fair shake because of racial discrimination. She talks about the 1968 Wimbledon, where the men’s champion – Rod Laver – got 2,000 pounds, while King got 750. She used her platform to speak about the unfairness of it, something most athletes wouldn’t do even today.King speaks about the dark passages in her marriage, when she got an abortion in the early 1970s because she wasn’t ready to embrace the role of being a mother. It became public when her husband unwittingly signed her up in an open letter about celebrities who had gotten abortions – which caused a controversy of its own.She speaks about the troubles she faced from former lover Marilyn Barnett, who doubled up as her secretary during a brief period in King’s career. Barnett was blackmailing her by threatening to out King as a lesbian by leaking letters to the press unless she was allowed to stay in the Malibu house. In a stark confession, King reveals she was afraid Barnett was capable of showing up at one of her games carrying a gun.She’s honest about the shame she felt about hiding her affair with Barnett from her husband – until she chose to go public with her sexual preference. A death sentence for a celebrity in the 1970s, unsurprisingly, all sponsors left King overnight after the announcement.Garbus and Wolff’s film tries to tease this part out of King – how she was almost amiable with members of the press despite being crucified by some of them. It never made her bitter and rarely caused her to bring up her guard during a conversation.Smartly integrating archival footage with interviews, Give Me the Ball! doesn’t rewrite the rules of documentaries – but it does a great job of prioritising robust storytelling over tentative form.Billie Jean King’s life is an example of someone building their tribe in an individual sport, where she could have also been a silent spectator and gone on to have a storied career. But she took it upon herself to have difficult conversations, and used her privilege to leave the sport better than she found it. Along with conquering most peaks in women’s tennis. It’s an extraordinary achievement by an extraordinary ambassador of the sport.Give Me the Ball!, therefore, also doubles up as the statement of a bold athlete who likes to take the contest by its horns, rather than be intimidated by it. These are the players who usually change the way the sport is played.In a sport that still emphasises star athletes to “shut up and play” – King’s story is rebuttal that silence is a choice, and rarely a neutral one. Whether it was the tennis arena or the world she inhabited, Billie Jean King not only left it all on the court; she made sure the court itself was never the same again.Give me the ball! premiered at the 2026 Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah.