Key Points
- adidas is reissuing Billie Jean King's signature tennis shoe (style code KH9857) for $110.
- King's 1974 adidas signature was the first for any female athlete.
- Two colorways drop: a royal blue and an off-white suede.
- Backtabs read King's 1973 Battle of the Sexes score: 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.
adidas is reissuing the Billie Jean King — the 1974 model that was the first signature sneaker for any female athlete — under style code KH9857 at $110. Hypebeast reports pairs are already surfacing at European retailers ahead of a wider release.
On September 20, 1973, King beat Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in the "Battle of the Sexes," a nationally televised match watched by an estimated 90 million viewers worldwide that became a landmark moment for women's sports. In 1974, King became the first female athlete to release a signature sneaker with adidas — the blue suede pair she wore into that match now sits in the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
The 2026 reissue carries the commemorative details rather than just the silhouette. It arrives in two colorways — a royal blue that mirrors the original and a simpler off-white suede — both built on a low-profile retro tennis sole with serrated Three Stripes and curved toe-box overlays. A leather tongue tag features an illustration of King updated to her present-day likeness, with her signature stamped in gold along the lateral heel. The backtabs carry the three set scores from the Riggs match, and the insoles read "Pressure Is a Privilege" — King's personal motto and the title of her 2008 memoir.
The return lands as adidas leans hard on its archive and its outside partners this summer, from Pharrell's Jellyfish "Triple White" to Willy Chavarria's Stan Smith collaborations at Paris Fashion Week. The full July 2026 release calendar runs the rest of the month's drops. An exact release date and US availability for the Billie Jean King are still to be confirmed.
Source: Hypebeast
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