1975—Arthur Ashe Wins a Classic Wimbledon Final

Forty years ago, white was the traditional color tennis players wore at top-tier international tennis events like historic Wimbledon in London. Although white is still mandatory at Wimbledon, vivid colors have been pervading men’s and women’s fashions since the early 1970s.

In 1975, Arthur Ashe, a native of Richmond, Virginia, broke the color barrier for competitors by becoming the first black male to reach the Wimbledon final. His opponent, Jimmy Connors, was nine years younger and the defending champion. Cocky and heavily favored to win with his power game, Connors had breezed through his side of the draw without losing a set.

Strategically, Ashe had a lot to think about if he was going to make a reputable showing in what would be a heavily touted match. Together with his Davis Cup friends, Ashe came up with a plan to slow the pace with “junk” and try to break Connors’s rhythm with low-bouncing shots and well-placed slicing serves designed to pull his two-fisted opponent out of the court.

The strategy worked: Ashe controlled the match and won the grass-court title in four sets. He now joined Althea Gibson, who became the first black woman to win Wimbledon in 1957.

Ashe won thirty-three singles and eighteen doubles titles before he retired in 1980. In addition to Wimbledon, he won two other grand-slam events—the U.S. Open championship (1968) and the Australian Open (1970). Only the French Open title eluded him; in the history of the game, just seven men and ten women have ever won all four grand slam titles.

Throughout his career, Ashe rarely beat himself. Twice he reached the number-one ranking in the world. A model of sportsmanship, Ashe pursued tennis as a worthy pastime, always aware that he could be a positive influence both on and off the court. To his credit, professional tennis never totally consumed him as it did many of his racquet-toting peers.

Ashe was an articulate and successful black role model who was sometimes challenged in ways far greater than the competition he faced across the net. In 1969 he was denied a visa to play the South African Open because of the country’s apartheid policy. Ashe’s call for the expulsion of South Africa from the professional tennis circuit won many supporters and helped call attention to apartheid worldwide.

He continued to be an influential voice for civil rights and social causes throughout his career and into retirement. As an occasional television sports commentator and newspaper columnist, he valued his degree in business administration from UCLA as much as any tennis trophy. He always encouraged talented young athletes to pursue a college education before betting their futures on the alluring but unpredictable world of professional sports.

 A family history of heart disease unfortunately did not spare Ashe, who was seemingly in excellent physical condition. In 1979, he suffered a heart attack and underwent major heart surgery. It is believed that tainted blood from a transfusion at the time of a second surgery in 1983 infected him with HIV. Ashe died from complications from AIDS on February 6, 1993, at age forty-nine.

—Jim Barber, Historian, National Portrait Gallery

 

For further reading:

Arthur Ashe and Arnold Rampersad, Days of Grace (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994)

John McPhee, Levels of the Game (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969).