NEW YORK—The central theme of this year’s US Open is barrier-breaking. Specifically, the barrier that Althea Gibson broke 75 years ago when she became the first African-American to play the U.S. Nationals at Forest Hills.
So it made sense that fans had a chance to see one of the inheritors of Gibson’s legacy, and a trailblazer of equal importance, Venus Williams, play in person on Monday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium. In 1997, the year that Ashe made its debut, a teenage Williams also made her Open debut, and went all the way to the final. Twenty-eight years later, we can see the product of that breakthrough in the many Black women tennis players who have come after her, and who populate the draw at Flushing Meadows today.
👉 Watch on the Tennis Channel app: TenniStory, Althea Gibson