THERE aren’t many sportsmen or women who can be said to have added more willingly and copiously to the story of blacks in sport as tennis great Arthur Ashe.

Ashe, born on the 10th July 1943, in the midst of the African-American civil rights movement in the infamously prejudiced ‘South’ of the US, blazed a trail to be later followed by the dominant Williams sisters. He went to university on a tennis scholarship and, at the age of 20 in 1963, was selected to the USA’s Davis Cup team. He was the first African-American to be selected to the team in a time when racism was a lot more prevalent.

Arthur Ashe, in 1968, would again become the first African-American in a milestone, winning the first-ever US Open. This was before Ashe had even made the decision to go pro, and after he made this decision in 1969 success inexorably followed.

He won the Australian Open in 1970 and even at the biggest stage, Wimbledon in 1975. To this day he remains the only African-American to have won men’s singles at a Wimbledon, the US or the Australian Opens. His contribution did not end there, however, as the consummate professional enlisted to the UN’s Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid Conference in the 1970s.

Further, after suffering setbacks in his health, Ashe continued to represent his race, organising a history of African-American athletes called A Hard Road to Glory.