No, not the Michael Jackson song. Just in time for the 2025 U.S. Open, the new play Billie Jean, about the personal and professiona life of trailblazing tennis star Billie Jean King, made its world premiere in Chicago starring Broadway's Chilina Kennedy in the title role. Alongside exploring King's fight for gender equality in sports and her coming-out journey, it also realistically reenacts multiple tennis matches on stage.

In 2007, the late playwright Terrence McNally (Master Class, Ragtime) took a swing at tennis in his Broadway show starring Tony Award winners Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes as retired women’s doubles tennis champions reunited at the U.S. Open. Watching a match, they gab about their glory days, aging, friendship, and more.

Though the play received mixed reviews, critics agreed the stars aced it. “If only the phenomenal talent onstage talked about their own careers instead of fictional tennis players, we’d then have ‘match point,’” New York Theatre Guide's review reads.

The U.S. Open sets the stage for Anna Ziegler’s play seen off Broadway in 2017, which uses tennis plays as stand-ins for the high-stakes game of life. All of that comes into play as a fading American champion takes on his younger Russian challenger, while the women in their lives root them on from the sidelines.

“Invisible balls are served, chased, returned and missed with grace and power by two toned athletes wielding invisible rackets,” wrote Variety's critic in praise of the stylized production.

A.R. Gurney (Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour) dramatizes the complex life of tennis champion William Tatem “Big Bill” Tilden II, one of the sport’s early icons whose triumphs and tragedies echoed beyond the court. Set from the 1920s-40s, the play traces the gifted athlete’s rise to fame, flamboyant persona, and eventual fall due to scandal.

“Tilden's high-flying career and precipitous crash were certainly the stuff of drama,” wrote The New York Times's critic. John Michael Higgins played the title role in Big Bill's 2004 Off-Broadway premiere.

Coauthors Kevin Armento and Bryony Lavery Landing recreate the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in Balls, a play about cultural spectacle, identity, and the fight for equality — on and off the court.

“The actors reënact every shot; no balls are actually lobbed, but the fluid harmonization of movement and sound effects is transporting,” cheered The New Yorker's critic. The play arrived off Broadway, starring Ellen Tamaki and Donald Corren, in 2018, a year after the film Battle of the Sexes traced the same story with lead actors Emma Stone and Steve Carell.

Billie Jean King is at center court — well, center stage — again in this multimedia Off‑Broadway play. Created by and starring Laryssa Husiak, She Is King dramatizes pivotal television interviews with the tennis legend at key chapters of her storied life.

The production, first seen in NYC in 2014, used nine TV screens and archival footage to bring these moments to life. King was ready for the closeups, per The New York Times review: “She seems to morph from tennis star to feminist hero before our eyes.”

Midlife angst, coming right up! David Wiltse’s 1985 Broadway comedy takes place at a suburban Connecticut tennis club, where four middle‑aged men meet to play doubles. Between matches, they share laughs, vent about marriages, aging, and lost dreams in the locker room.

“Theatergoers who share that undying fondness for sitcoms may enjoy ‘Doubles’ as well,” noted The New York Times review. John Cullum, Ron Liebman, Austin Pendleton, and Tony Roberts — a formidable stage foursome — led the Broadway production.

Imagine if life came with color commentary. Andy Bragen’s edgy dramedy about masculinity, rivalry, and love centers on two New York couples brought together by fiercely competitive weekly tennis matches. As the men volley on court — one temperamental, the other a self‑confessed rule‑bender — their girlfriends dissect the dynamics. The play premiered off Broadway in 2016.

Okay, it’s a movie, not a play, but two of the film’s leads are also stage stars: Mike Faist for Dear Evan Hansen and Newsies on Broadway, plus Steven Spielberg's West Side Story movie musical; and Josh O’Connor, who's appeared in Farragut North in London and leads a revival of Golden Boy there in fall 2025. Challengers, as such, has become a favorite of many theatre fans.

In the film, alongside Zendaya, Faist and O'Connor play two parts of an intense romantic triangle set in the world of professional tennis. Written by Justin Kuritzkes and directed by Luca Guadagnino, the story dives into themes of ambition, betrayal, and, of course, love.