The grandson of tennis celebrity Bobby Riggs has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for two counts of coercing and enticing teenage female tennis players to engage in sexual activity. The players trained at his family’s training program at the Lauderdale Tennis Club in Florida.

According to the criminal complaint, Daniel James Riggs, a 33–year-old resident of Pompano Beach, Fla., engaged in sexual acts with the first teenage girl from 2021 to 2024. That victim was 15 when it began.

Riggs also engaged in sexual acts with another teenage girl, which law enforcement officials learned of in the fall of 2024 after subpoenaing one of Riggs’ social media accounts. The second girl was 16 at the time.

Riggs had made five Snapchat accounts for the purpose of communicating with the first victim and receiving explicit videos from her. While reviewing those accounts, officials found conversations with the second victim, which were of a sexual nature and, the complaint said, showed that she and Riggs “were engaged in a sexual relationship.”

“Children and parents trust coaches with more than athletic instruction. They trust them with safety, guidance, and character,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.

“This defendant abused that trust in the most disturbing way imaginable, using his position to groom and sexually exploit the very students he was supposed to mentor. Twenty years in federal prison reflects the seriousness of that betrayal.”

In an interview on Friday, Russell Jay Williams, the attorney who represented Riggs, said his client regretted his actions and gave a statement to that effect at his sentencing hearing on March 12.

“He apologized to the families,” Williams said. “He expressed his remorse for violating the families’ trust.”

Williams said Riggs decided to plead guilty because he faced life in prison if the case had gone to trial. The sentencing guideline in the plea agreement specified a sentence of 24.5 to 30 years.

This is the latest incident in a sport that has, for years, had to police and manage sexual harassment and attacks by coaches on young boys and girls. There are roughly 100 coaches on the United States Tennis Association’s banned list, and the organization has tried to improve education for both players and coaches.

However, it does not license coaches before they can begin working with children. The nature of the sport, which involves intense one-on-one instruction and travel to tournaments, where coaches often serve as guardians of their players and sometimes share rooms with them, has made it particularly prone to exploitation.

Riggs’ grandfather, Bobby Riggs, won Wimbledon and the tournament now known as the U.S. Open during his amateur career. However, he is probably best known for losing to Billie Jean King in the famed “Battle of the Sexes” match of 1973 at the Houston Astrodome, which remains the most-watched tennis match of all time. Bobby died in 1995.

His grandson played in some lower-tier professional tournaments in the early 2010s but did not have significant success, eventually turning to coaching.

The criminal complaint said that Riggs began coaching his first victim in 2020 and traveled with her to tournaments across the U.S., including one in Brazil. Riggs and his father, Larry, were considered the player’s guardians at those tournaments.

The coercion to engage in sexual acts began in late 2021, the complaint said, and Riggs started having sex with the first player after a visit to a tournament in Brazil in mid-2022.

The complaint said that Riggs had the teenager watch pornographic videos with him and had her send him explicit videos of herself on Snapchat accounts that he set up for her. Riggs made and deleted his accounts to avoid being traced, the complaint said.

The victim wrote about one of the sexual acts in her diary, but then crossed it out after her mother found the diary and confronted her about it, the complaint said.

She then continued training with Riggs.

According to the complaint, Riggs sometimes expressed regret for his actions and discussed with her the danger of having sex with a minor, knowing that it was wrong. He then instructed her not to write down anything or tell anyone, and resumed having sex with her, the complaint said.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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