The Family Circle Cup, a WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) Tour tournament, is currently underway at the Family Circle Tennis Center in Charleston, South Carolina. You may have heard about this tournament but I bet you don’t know the depth of its history.
It was one of the tournaments in the early 70’s to push women’s professional sports forward. Considering professional tennis, along with many other sports, was predominantly dominated by the men, the formation of new professional women’s tournament was an important step in growing the sport.
In 1973, the same year Billie Jean King founded the WTA, a professional women’s tournament was to be played for the first time in Hilton Head, SC. The Family Circle Magazine jumped at the chance to sponsor this remarkable tennis event and in the process became the first women’s magazine to sponsor a female professional sporting event. Besides this fact, the Family Circle Cup has many other honorable distinctions. For the past 31 years, The Family Circle Magazine has never left the tournament’s side. This sort of loyalty in sports is hard to come by these days.
The Family Circle Cup was also the first tennis event for women to offer $100,000 dollars in prize money, with $30,000 of this sum going to the winner. It was also the first women’s tennis event to be broadcasted on network television. Even in the year 2014, you should be excited to tune in on the television or even plan a trip out to Charleston, which is a great place in its own right.
America’s sweetheart, Chris Evert has won the Family Circle Cup eight times which is tournament record. Clearly this tournament draws some big names considering two other tennis legends, Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova, have won this tournament four times each. Also Justine Henin, Serena Williams, and Caroline Wozniacki, three former World No. 1 players, are former champions.
Interesting matches are set for today with Venus Williams facing off against Eugenie Bouchard, and the No. 7 seeded Samantha Stosur taking on No. 9 seeded Lucie Safarova. Also the two Germans, Andrea Petkovic and Sabine Lisicki, play later in the day. If you want to see a potential future star, tune into watch 16 year old Belinda Bencic (we recently blogged about her: Top Junior Tennis Players from Around the World) as she takes her shot at the Family Circle Cup title as well.
