Top 100 momentsNo. 45
Ashe at Wimbledon
Arthur Ashe beats Jimmy Connors on Centre Court. A Black American champion, in whites, on the sport’s most guarded lawn.
Jimmy Connors is defending champion and favorite. Arthur Ashe, 31, changes pace, chips, lobs, and refuses the baseline brawl Connors wants. He wins in four sets. He is the first Black man to win Wimbledon.
Ashe has already integrated American tennis the hard way. The All England Club is a different kind of door. He walks through it in a strategy match that still gets taught as how to beat a bully with brains.
His later years — activism, HIV, a funeral that filled a cathedral — are another story. 1975 is the sporting sentence: Centre Court, a trophy, and a sport that had to write a new name on the board.