biography
| name: |
Ashe, Arthur (Robert)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1943–93)
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| biography:
| Tennis player and writer, born in Richmond, Virginia, USA. After studying at the University of California at Los Angeles on a tennis scholarship, he was selected for the US Davis Cup side in 1963 (winners 1968–70), and was the first black player to win the US national singles and open championships in 1968. He turned professional in 1969, and went on to win the Australian Open (1970) and Wimbledon (1975, defeating Jimmy Connors). While actively protesting apartheid in South Africa, he was granted a visa in 1973 to become the first black professional to play in that country. In 1979 he retired from competition after suffering a heart attack, and wrote a history of African-American athletes in the USA, A Hard Road to Glory (3 vols, 1988). He became a spokesman for AIDS education after it was revealed in 1992 that he had contracted the AIDS virus from a blood transfusion. |
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