Meet Billie Jean King’s former tennis pro wife and look inside the couple’s decades-long relationship

Billie isn’t the only tennis star in her relationship. Ilana, who was born in South Africa, was a professional tennis player, with a lot of success in doubles tennis. In 1972, she won the Wimbledon girls’ singles title. The following year, she won the SA Doubles title alongside Linky Boshoff.

Her success continued and by 1976, Ilana was No. 1 in the world for doubles and No. 19 in singles. Throughout her career, Ilana won the U.S. Open Doubles Champion, French Open Mixed Doubles Champion and U.S. Open Over 35 Mixed Doubles Champion.

While Billie played tennis in Johannesburg, she met Ilana, who was working as a ball girl during the tournament. But, it was no coincidence that Ilana worked during Billie’s match.

“We’d all fight to ballgirl for her – especially at [the] net where we’d get more work,” Ilana wrote on the Women’s Tennis Association website in 2020 of their first time meeting. “It’s the first memory I have of seeing a female athlete live – we didn’t have TV and any tennis that wasn’t local we would have listened to on the radio – and she brought this amazing energy, focus and sense of the theatre to the court.”

She went on: “It was electrifying. She was a serve-and-volleyer and she was all-in. That’s something I’ve seen her be throughout her life – everything she takes on is 100%.”

The couple got together just after Billie ended her 23-year marriage to her husband Larry King.

On October 18, 2018, after four decades of dating, Billie and Ilana got married in secret at former New York Mayor David Dinkins‘ Manhattan apartment, who also officiated the ceremony.

“Nobody threw rice or smashed wedding cake in the other’s face,” Billie wrote in her memoir. “One of the brides wore jeans and a lovely red scarf and the other had on a black shirt, a comfortable warm‑up suit, and pearls – ha! – a personal touch of glamour that Ilana still teases me about.”

Even Billie and Ilana’s closest friends didn’t know about their marriage until the tennis star released her memoir. 

“‘So much of our life has been public, keeping this private was something special we could hold on to, just for us,'” Billie quoted Ilana telling their friend in her memoir. “‘We didn’t need the world to know. It was just about Billie and me and how we felt.'”

Outside of her successful tennis career and relationship with Billie, Ilana worked as the CEO and commissioner of World TeamTennis for 17 years. The company was a mixed-gender professional tennis league founded by Billie and her ex-husband Larry, and Dennis Murphy.

Additionally, in 2007, Ilana was named the Sports Business Woman of the Year by Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. She is on the board of trustees of the Women’s Sports Foundation, is an executive board member of the Tennis Industry Association, on the board of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and was a past advisor to the Professional Women’s Hockey Player’s Association.

Billie retired from the sport in 1983 and took a long, much needed break. After the COVID-19 pandemic, Ilana convinced her wife to pick up her racket again.

“I was so bad at the beginning, but Ilana’s very patient,” Billie recalled to Town & Country in August 2023. “She could put it right on my racket. It was glorious. It’s great. It brings back memories.”

The couple are not only fans of women’s sports, they invest their money in it too. Billie and Ilana invested in Angel City Football Club, the women’s professional soccer team in Los Angeles. They are also part owners of the Los Angeles Sparks and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“We need everyone to invest in women’s sports and Ilana and I are proud to stand with the Angel City FC ownership group and help make new history in Southern California sports,” Billie said in a statement in 2020.

Of her ownership of the iconic MLB team, Billie told People in May 2024: “I’ll never forget the first night we went out to watch the Dodgers as new owners. I thought, ‘How unbelievable – we’re girls and we’re gay and we’re owners. That’s a good sign. That’s a breakthrough. That’s a forward.'”