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Billie Jean King has revealed how her efforts to form the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) were "really scary", adding that she now believes tennis' modern-day stars are "living our dream".
June will mark half a century since King gathered more than 60 women together at the Gloucester Hotel in London to form the WTA.
The seeds had been sown three years earlier when, angry at being treated like second-class citizens in tennis' fledgling professional era, nine women branched out on their own.
King, Rosie Casals, Nancy Richey, Kerry Melville, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon, Judy Dalton, Valerie Ziegenfuss and Julie Heldman - known as the Original Nine - all signed symbolic $1 contracts to compete in a new tour, the Virginia Slims Series.
That evolved into the WTA and later in 1973 the US Open became the first Grand Slam to offer equal prize money after King threatened to lead a boycott.
"When we dreamed about a tour, dreamed about equal prize money, we were thinking it would take a long time," King said.
"There's three things that we thought about with the Original Nine. Firstly, that any girl in this world, if she were good enough, would have a place to compete. Not play, but compete.
"Number two, to be appreciated for our accomplishments, not only our looks. And number three, really important, to be able to make a living in tennis, the sport we had such a passion to play.
"As amateurs we used to get $14 a day. We really wanted this. We wanted it for the future generations. We knew if we did well, it would help us a little. The real happenings were going to be to the later generations.
"It was a nightmare. It was really scary. I was really scared. But I kept thinking about the future. It's very clear now, if you know the history, they're living our dream."