Arthur Ashe - Early Life and Tennis Career

Early Life and Tennis Career

Born in Gum Spring, Virginia, to parents Arthur Ashe Sr. and Mattie Cordell Cunningham Ashe, Arthur and his younger brother, Johnnie, suffered a tragic loss when their mother died suddenly from heart related complications during routine surgery. Arthur Ashe first attended Maggie L. Walker High School, being coached by Ronald Charity, and later by Robert Walter Johnson. Tired of having to travel great distances to play Caucasian youths in segregated Richmond, Ashe accepted an offer from a St. Louis tennis official to move there and attend Sumner High School. Young Ashe was recognized by Sports Illustrated for his playing. He was awarded a tennis scholarship to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1963. That same year, Ashe became the first black player ever selected for the United States Davis Cup team. In 1965, Ashe won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) singles title and contributed to UCLA's winning the team NCAA tennis championship.

In 1968, Ashe won the United States Amateur Championships against Davis Cup Teammate Bob Lutz, and the first US Open of the open era. He also aided the U.S Davis Cup team to victory. He is the only player to have won both of these amateur and open national championships in the same year. In January 1970, Ashe won his second Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open. In September 1970 Ashe turned professional by signing a five-year contract with Lamar Hunt's World Championship Tennis. Concerned that tennis professionals were not receiving winnings commensurate with the sport's growing popularity, Ashe supported the formation of the Association of Tennis Professionals in 1972. That year proved momentous for Ashe when he was denied a visa by the South African government, and was thus kept out of the South African Open. Ashe used this to publicize South Africa's apartheid policies: in the media, Ashe called for South Africa to be expelled from the professional tennis circuit.

In 1975, Ashe won Wimbledon, defeating Jimmy Connors in the final. He also won the season ending championship WCT Finals. He played for a few more years, but after being slowed by heart surgery in 1979, he retired in 1980.

Ashe remains the only black man to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open, or Australian Open. He is one of only two men of black African ancestry to win any Grand Slam singles title, the other being France's Yannick Noah, who won the French Open in 1983.

In his 1979 autobiography, Jack Kramer, the long-time tennis promoter and a world no. 1 player himself in the 1940s, ranked Ashe as one of the 21 best players of all time.