The Gender Racket

One of my many regrets is that when I was young and on the tennis circuit, I played as a man. I had a crush on Margaret Osborne duPont, an older player who won numerous Wimbledon and U.S. national doubles titles, and the very pretty Karen Hantz, a Wimbledon singles winner, not to mention the Buding sisters from Germany. Had I thought of it back then—I am talking about the late ’50s—I could have been showering with them, not to mention competing against them. Instead, I had my you-know-what ki...