When tennis legend Venus Williams stepped onto Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie King Tennis Center for her first-round matchup at the 2025 US Open, her white polo and matching pleated skirt was near identical to Althea Gibson’s signature outfit throughout her career. It was intentional on Williams’ part.
‘The most important part is that we are celebrating (Althea Gibson),’ said Williams, who donned a custom ERL tennis set in honor of Gibson in a 6-3, 2-6, 6-1 first-round loss to Karolína Muchová on Aug. 25. ‘Althea accomplished so much, and a lot of it has not been given the credit it deserves and the attention and the praise.’
Gibson became the first Black player to compete at the US Open (formerly known as the U.S. National Championships) in 1950. Seventy-five years later, the 2025 US Open is honoring Gibson breaking the color barrier in tennis by hosting “75 years of breaking barriers’ this year.
‘It’s amazing that she’s been able to create this path for so many Black females,’ said Hailey Baptiste, who dropped a second-round matchup to Naomi Osaka, who advanced to the semifinals. ‘From Venus (Williams) and Serena (Williams), to me, Coco Gauff.
‘There’s so many. Without that trailblazer, we wouldn’t be here today.’
Gibson may have been the first Black woman to win a Grand Slam, with the first of her five singles titles coming at the 1956 French Open, but she’s certainly not the last. Thirty-eight Black women have gone on to win a Grand Slam singles title since the Open Era began in 1968, including Serena Williams (23), Venus Williams (7), Naomi Osaka (4), Coco Gauff (2), Sloane Stephens (1) and Madison Keys (1).
‘I had an opportunity to feel proud of who I was and who I am because of people like Althea,’ Venus Williams said. ‘Of course, there’s different kinds of ways you’re perceived or sometimes treated because of the color your skin, but it never stopped me.’
Althea Gibson ‘accepted on her ability’
The brown hue of Gibson’s skin effectively barred her from entering prominent U.S. tournaments that not only favored pristine white tennis outfits, but white patrons as racial segregation and Jim Crow laws ran rampant. Inclusion had reached other sports, including boxing, football and baseball, where Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in MLB in 1947, but tennis was a step behind.
‘If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it’s also time we acted a little more like gentle-people and less like sanctimonious hypocrites,’ five-time Grand Slam champion Alice Marble wrote in a scathing open letter to the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association (now the United States Tennis Association) in July 1950. ‘(Gibson) has a much better chance on the courts than in the inner-sanctum of the committee, where a different kind of game is played.”
Gibson was granted entry into the 1950 U.S. National Championships in Forest Hills, New York, becoming the first Black player to receive an invitation. She recalled the moment in her 1960 autobiography, ‘I Always Wanted To Be Somebody,’ writing, ‘The president of the (USLTA) that year said that I was one of the fifty-two women whose entries had been accepted for the national championship tournament, and he added meaningfully, ‘Miss Gibson has been accepted on her ability.’ That was all I had ever asked.’
She defeated Great Britain’s Barbara Knapp 6-2, 6-2 in the first round on Court 14, the court furthest from the clubhouse that was typically used for practice sessions. Gibson faced three-time reigning Wimbledon champion Louise Brough in the second round and built an impressive 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 lead, needing one more game for the massive upset, before ‘the worst thing that could have happened’ did, Gibson wrote. A weather delay was called due to a thunderstorm, halting Gibson’s momentum.
A nervous Gibson went on to lose to the veteran, but the pivotal moment proved she belonged. Gibson went on to become the first Black player to win a Grand Slam at the 1956 French Open and the first Black player to be ranked No. 1 in the world after winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals in 1957. She ended her career with 11 Grand Slams, including five singles, five doubles and one mixed doubles title. (In 1964, Gibson also became the first Black woman to join the LPGA Tour.)
‘She was ‘the’ trailblazer for African Americans in tennis,’ Ben Shelton said. ‘If it wasn’t for her… who knows if my dad is ever playing tennis as a Black kid in Alabama in the ’70s and ’80s.’
Who can be the next Althea Gibson?
Gibson and Billie Jean King are both tennis pioneers. Both used their talents to advocate for change and equality, but it was Gibson who inspired King’s path toward social justice.
‘At 12, I was at the Los Angeles Tennis Club … and I noticed everyone who played our sport wore white clothes and everyone who played was white. I asked myself, ‘Where is everyone else?’’ King wrote in a foreword for Gibson’s biography in 2022. ‘From that moment on I committed my life to a life of equality for everyone.’
In an interview with USA TODAY Sports last month, King said she’s ‘still thinking about how to change the sport’ and is ‘looking for players that can take our sport to another level in the next generation.’ King said she sees these traits in Gauff, 21, and Canadian teen sensation Victoria Mboko, 19, who possess the capability to transcend tennis. It’s a duty that Gauff does not take lightly.
“Win or lose, knowing that there’s, you know, at least one or two girls out there who look up to me,’ said Gauff, who was knocked out by Osaka in the Round of 16 (6-3, 6-2). ‘It makes me want to keep waking up and doing this every day and being the best version of myself.”
Art, comics, marching band: Althea Gibson tributes at US Open
Ahead of the women’s singles semifinal matchup between Osaka and Amanda Anisimova, Venus Williams announced the launch of the Williams Family Excellence Program with the USTA Foundation. Williams said the achievement wouldn’t be possible without Gibson forging a path for people of color, one of many tributes to Gibson during this year’s tournament.
Melissa Koby, the US Open’s first Black theme artist in tournament history, created a striking logo out of Gibson’s silhouette that has been prominently featured throughout the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
“When I was creating the piece, I thought of Althea as my ancestor, as a strong black female,’ Koby told the US Open. ‘She’s not my grandmother, but I thought of her as that, and I created it with the intention of making her proud to see that a little black girl created something to honor her.”
The Florida A&M University Marching 100 performed in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Aug. 27, just days after what would have been Gibson’s 98th birthday on August. 25. Gibson, who died in 2003, attended FAMU on a tennis scholarship. Other tributes include a Marvel comic book that features Gibson and the Fantastic Four.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.