Home > Arthur Ashe

Ashe began to attract the attention of tennis fans after being awarded a tennis scholarship at UCLA in 1963. That same year, Ashe was the first African American ever selected to the United States's Davis Cup team.

In 1965, Ashe won the individual NCAA championship, and was a chief contributor in UCLA's winning the team NCAA championship in the same year. With this successful college career behind him, Ashe quickly ascended to the upper echelon of tennis players worldwide after turning professional in 1966.

By 1969, Ashe was considered by most as the best American among male tennis players: he had won the inaugural U.S. Open in 1968Events Undated Booker Prize for Fiction is established by Booker plc. 1968 is known as the year of the Prague Spring and also the year of the Paris riots. The ASCII character code is standardized as ANSI Standard X3. Nauru adopt his national anthem of the, and had aided the U.S. Davis Cup team to victory that same year. Concerned that tennis pros were not receiving winnings commensurate with the sport's growing popularity, Ashe was one of the key figures behind the formation of the Association of Tennis ProfessionalsThe Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP was formed in 1972 to protect the interests of male professional Tennis players. Female players formed the Women's Tennis Association the year after. In 1990, the association became the organizer of the princip (ATP). That year would prove even more momentous for Ashe when he was denied a visa by the South AfricanSouth Africa is a republic at the southern tip of Africa. It is bordered to the north by Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the north-east by Mozambique and Swaziland. Lesotho is contained entirely inside the borders of South Africa. South Africa is one o government, thereby keeping him out of the South African Open . Ashe chose to use this denial to publicize in the media South Africa's apartheidApartheid ap-ar-taed is an Afrikaans word meaning "separation" or literally "aparthood" (or "apartness"). It was the name of the policy and the system of laws implemented and enforced by "White" minority governments in South Africa from 1948 till 1990. policies, by calling for South Africa to be expelled from the professional tennis circuit. In 1970Events January events January 1 Construction begins on Arcosanti, by Paolo Soleri, in Mayer, Arizona, located 65, miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. January 1 Unix epoch at 00:00:00 UTC. January 12 Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian civil war. January, he added a second Grand SlamA Grand Slam is a term in tennis used to denote winning all four of the following championship titles in the same year: Australian Open French Open Wimbledon U. Open These tournaments are therefore also known as the Grand Slam tournaments and rank as the title to his resume by winning the Australian OpenThe Australian Open tennis tournament, held annually in mid- January, is the first of the world's four Grand Slam tournaments. Originally based at the grass courts at Kooyong in the city of Melbourne's inner south-east, the tournament was in danger of fad.

In 1975, after several years of lower levels of success, Ashe played his best season ever by winning Wimbledon -- unexpectedly defeating Jimmy Connors in the final -- and earning for himself the #1 ranking in the world. (He remains the only black player ever to win the Wimbledon Men's Singles.) Ashe played several more years, but after being slowed by heart surgery in 1979, Ashe retired in 1980.

After his retirement, Ashe took on many new tasks, from writing for Time magazine to commenting for ABC Sports , from founding the National Junior Tennis League to serving as captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team. In 1983, Ashe underwent a second heart surgery. He was, to no one's surprise, elected to the Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985.

The story of Ashe's life turned from success to tragedy in 1988, however, when Ashe discovered he had contracted HIV during the blood transfusions he had received during one of his two heart surgeries. He and his wife kept his illness private until rumors forced him to make a public announcement on April 8, 1992, that he had the disease. In the last year of his life, Arthur Ashe did much to call attention to AIDS sufferers worldwide. Two months before his death, he founded the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, to help address issues of inadequate health care delivery and was named Sports Illustrated magazine's " Sportsman of the Year". He also spent much of the last years of his life writing his memoir Days of Grace, finishing the manuscript less than a week before his death.

Ashe died of complications from AIDS on February 6, 1993.

The city of Richmond posthumously honored Ashe's life with a statue on Monument Avenue, a place that was traditionally reserved for statues of key figures of the Confederacy. This decision led to some controversy in a city that was the capital of the Confederate States during the American Civil War.

The main stadium at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Park, where the U.S. Open is played, is named after Ashe.