When Arthur Ashe made history at Wimbledon
Arthur Ashe spread his arms and nodded triumphantly to the cheering Wimbledon crowd. As the first black winner on the Holy Lawn, the 31-year-old made history on July 5, 1975. His opponent: Jimmy Connors, 22 years old, defending champion, number one in the world and the big favorite.
by SID
last edit: Jul 05, 2021, 07:33 pm
Ashe didn't give his usually self-confident US compatriot a chance that day in London SW19. After just one hour he was leading 2-0 sets, and in the end it was a clear 6: 1, 6: 1, 5: 7, 6: 4. With a real game plan, Ashe had thrown the highly-favored Connors off concept: He didn't play pure power tennis, but relied on his first serve and served nibbled balls into the half-field - a strategy that Connors couldn't cope with at all.
When Arthur Ashe was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1943, there was little to suggest that he would one day win the world's most important tennis tournament. Blacks were excluded from the elite sport at the time, Ashe played in public squares and dusty streets as a child until a teacher at a local school discovered the ten-year-old's talent in 1953. The rest is history.
Ashe's career ended five years after his triumph at Wimbledon. Following a heart operation in December 1979, he announced his resignation in April 1980 at the age of 36. In 1992 he made his HIV disease public; he is said to have received a contaminated blood bank during a bypass operation. From then on, Ashe devoted himself to the fight against AIDS in the last year of his life. He died on February 6, 1993 at the age of 49 of complications from pneumonia.
Ashe was inducted into the Newport Hall of Fame in 1985. In 1993, then US President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. A statue of him was erected in his native Richmond, and in New York the largest tennis stadium in the world bears his name: the men's singles final of the US Open is held annually at Arthur Ashe Stadium.