Emma Stone’s trainer, Jason Walsh, was basically explaining to People that she would need that muscle tone to play Billie Jean King, a tennis icon and a former World No. 1 tennis player who tore down gender stereotypes when — in a highly publicized match — she challenged blowhard competitor Bobby Riggs (who will be portrayed by Steve Carell in the upcoming Battle of the Sexes).
The event was massive, earning a viewership of nearly 90 million people back in 1973.
To many, this was the event that legitimized women’s tennis, and helped put it on the level of men’s tennis in a still-uneven era of professional sport.