10 cigarette ads with women playing tennis

When women's tennis was a smoker's game: a look back

The U.S. Open's women's tournament kicked off this week and with it, a new crop of ad campaigns from credit card, liquor and airline sponsors. But it wasn't long ago that women's tennis was synonymous with cigarette ads. A search through the advertising archives of Tobacco.org shows the long, and depressing history of women's tennis as a smoker's sport. Tennis and cigarettes went hand-in-hand back in the '50s and '60s as a symbol of luxury. By the '70s, smoking and tennis also joined forces with the feminist movement. Battle of the Sexes champ and women's lib icon Billie Jean King helped form the Virginia Slims women's series back in the '70s and set forth the cigarette brand's permanent campaign as the emblem of equal carcinogenic rights. The brand carried on the legacy as a sponsor of Women's Tennis Association events through to the early '90s. We've come a long way, baby.

Photo by: Monica Seles in 1991 (photo by Getty Images)