Althea Gibson
Born: August 25, 1927
Died: September 28, 2003
Hometown: Silver, South Carolina, United States
Citizenship: United States
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1971
Grand Slam Record
Australian Singles finalist 1957
Doubles 1957
French Singles 1956
Doubles 1956
Wimbledon Singles 1957-58
Doubles 1956-58
Mixed finalist 1956-58
U.S. Singles 1957-58
Singles finalist 1956
Doubles finalist 1957, 58
Mixed 1957
Tournament Record
Italian Singles 1955
Wightman Cup 1957-58
No player overcame more obstacles to become a champion than Althea Gibson, the first black to win at Wimbledon and Forest Hills.
Her entry in the U.S. Championships of 1950 at Forest Hills was historic: the first appearance of an American black in that event. It took seven more years for Gibson to work her way to the championship there, in 1957. Tennis was pretty much a segregated sport in the U.S. until the American Tennis Association, the governing body for black tournaments, prevailed on the U.S. Tennis Association to permit the ATA female champion, Gibson, to enter Forest Hills. Two years earlier in 1948, Dr. Reginald Weir, a New York physician, was the first black permitted in a USTA championship, playing in the U.S. Indoor event.
Althea’s first appearance at Forest Hills was not only a notable occasion it was nearly a moment of staggering triumph. Making her historic debut in a 6-2, 6-2 win over Barbara Knapp, she encountered in the second round third-seeded Louise Brough, the reigning Wimbledon champion, and came within one game of winning. Recovering from nerves, Althea led, 1-6, 6-3, 7-6, when providence intervened: a thunderstorm struck Forest Hills, curtailing the match until the following day, when Brough reaffirmed her eminence by winning three straight games.
During the violent storm, a bolt of lightning had toppled one of the concrete guardian eagles from the upper reaches of the stadium. “It may have been an omen that times were changing,” Althea recalled.
Born August 25, 1927, in Silver, SC, Gibson, a right-hander, grew up in Harlem. Her family was poor, but she was fortunate in coming to the attention of Dr. Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, VA, physician who was active in the black tennis community. He became her patron, as he would later be for Arthur Ashe, the black champion at Forest Hills (1968) and Wimbledon (1975). Through Dr. Johnson, Gibson received better instruction and competition, and contacts were set up with the USTA to inject her into the recognized tennis scene.
Tall (5-foot-11), strong and extremely athletic, she would have come to prominence earlier but for segregation. She was 23 when she first played at Forest Hills, 30 when she won her first of two successive U.S. Championships, in 1957. During the two years she won Wimbledon, 1957 and 1958, she was ranked No. 1 in the U.S. and the world, but she was never completely at ease in amateur tennis for she realized that, despite her success, she was still unwelcome at some clubs where important tournaments were played. She was ranked No. 9 in 1952, her first of six inclusions in the U.S. Top Ten.
A mark of general acceptance, however, was her 1957 selection to represent the U.S. on the Wightman Cup team against Britain. She played two years, winning three of four singles, and two of two doubles.
Gibson was a big hitter with an awesome serve. She liked to attack, but developed consistency at the baseline eventually, and won the French–the first major for a black (over Angela Mortimer, 6-0, 12-10)–and Italian Singles Championships on slow clay in 1956.
In all, Gibson won 11 major titles in singles and doubles. After six years of trying at Forest Hills, she seemed ready to win in 1956, when she reached the final. But she appeared overanxious and lost to the steadier Shirley Fry, 6-3, 6-4. A year later Gibson was solidly in control, beating Darlene Hard, 6-3, 6-2, to take Wimbledon and following up with a 6-3, 6-2 triumph over Louise Brough in the Forest Hills final to at last rule her own country.
It was in doubles that Gibson accomplished the first Wimbledon championship by a black, in 1956 alongside Englishwoman Angela Buxton.
After winning Forest Hills for a second time in 1958, Althea turned pro. She played a series of head-to-head matches in 1960 against Karol Fageros, who had been ranked No. 8 in the U.S. Their tour was played in conjunction with the Harlem Globetrotters, the matches staged on basketball courts prior to Trotter games. Gibson won 114 of 118 matches. She said she earned over $100,000 in one year as her share of the gate, but there was no professional game in tennis for women then, and she turned to the pro golf tour for a few years. She showed an aptitude for that game, but was too late in starting.
Althea tried to play a few pro tennis events after open tennis began in 1968, but was too old. She was married briefly to W.A. Darben, and worked as a tennis teaching pro after ceasing competition. She was inducted into Hall of Fame in 1971.
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