(1943–93). Tennis champion Arthur Ashe was an African American who triumphed in a traditionally white sport. He is known as the first African American man to win the United States Open tournament. With the same calm determination he showed on the tennis court, Ashe also took the side of refugees, underprivileged children, and people with the disease known as AIDS.

Early life

Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr., was born in Richmond, Virginia, on July 10, 1943. His father worked at a park with four tennis courts. Arthur, Jr., started playing the game as a child. At age 10 he caught the eye of Dr. Robert Walter Johnson. Johnson was a physician and tennis fan who had discovered Althea Gibson, the first African American to win a Wimbledon championship. Under Johnson's coaching, Ashe improved his game.

Ashe soon began winning juvenile tournaments. Between 1955 and 1963, he won 11 national youth championships. At the same time, Ashe worked hard in school. His excellent grades and U.S. Interscholastic championship won him a scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). After winning National Collegiate Athletic Association championships for himself and his team, Ashe graduated in 1966 with a degree in business administration.

Career

In 1968, Ashe won a victory that took him to the top of the tennis world. In his first United States Open, while still an amateur, he defeated Tom Okker, a professional, in five grueling sets of play. Ashe had already won that year's U.S. amateur championship. No player since has won both the amateur and the Open tournaments in one year.

Ashe continued his record-setting year with a string of victories in the Davis Cup competition for national teams. He led the U.S. team to the championship. In all, Ashe played on ten Davis Cup teams between 1963 and 1978. In Davis Cup play he won 27 singles matches and lost only 5.

Ashe's U.S. open championship in 1968 was the first ever for an African American man in a so-called Grand Slam event. Afterward, he regularly reached the semifinals and finals of these top four tournaments. The others are Wimbledon (England), the French Open, and the Australian Open. Ashe won the Australian Open in 1970. In 1975 he won the top prize at Wimbledon. Ashe also won two Grand Slam doubles titles. He was ranked among the top ten players in the world for 12 years, and among the top ten Americans for 14.

Ashe had often spoken out against apartheid, the South African system of racial segregation. In 1973, Ashe visited South Africa. With his old rival Tom Okker—a white man—as his partner, he won the doubles title in the South African Open.

Later life

In 1979, at age 36, Ashe suffered a heart attack. He had surgery and made a good recovery, but he retired as a player. He later served as the coach of the U.S. Davis Cup team. His teams won championships in 1981 and 1982. In 1983 he had another heart attack and again required surgery. It is thought that blood that he received at this time was infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. As a result he contracted the disease.

When he was not coaching, Ashe defended the interests of underprivileged people such as refugees and inner-city children. He also wrote several books. In 1981 he published his autobiography, Off the Court. In 1988 he finished A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete, a three-volume history. Meanwhile, he was voted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985. He did not make the news of his illness public until April 1992. He died of AIDS on February 6, 1993. In 1997 the name of Arthur Ashe Stadium was given to the number one court at the National Tennis Center in New York City.