Second Serve

Second Serve is an American biopic of eye surgeon, professional tennis player and maletofemale transgender woman Rene Richards. The madefortelevision film is based on her 1983 autobiography Second Serve The Rene Richards Story that was written with John Ames. The script is by Stephanie Liss and Gavin Lambert and the film was directed by Anthony Page. Second Serve aired on CBS on May 13, 1986, and stars Vanessa Redgrave as Richards.

Rene relocates to California, resumes her career as a surgeon and begins dating. After playing in a local tennis tournament in La Jolla, Rene is outed as transgender by a television reporter. In the ensuing controversy, Rene takes the United States Tennis Association to court, where she secures her right to play professional tournament tennis as a woman without being subjected to chromosome testing.Critic John J. OConnor of the New York Times praised Redgraves performance. Although noting that from a physical standpoint Redgrave is not very believable, OConnor calls her performance astonishingly convincing. While finding the script wanting for its tendency to reduce complexities to cliches, OConnor also found that Second Serve does manage, despite oversimplifications and evasions, to stick to the point. But it is the extraordinary Redgrave performance that slams the message home. ........

Source: Wikipedia