Top 10 African-American Tennis Players of All Time

#2 Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe

The first African-American to be selected to the USA Davis Cup Team was Arthur Ashe. He was included in the USA Davis Cup squad in 1963 at the age of 20.

Till date, Ashe is the only black man to have won Australian Open, US Open, and the Wimbledon Championships. Ashe won an impressive 66 Singles titles including 3 Grand Slam Singles titles On two occasions he made the quarter-finals at the French Open Championships but was unlucky to have not gone on to win a Career Slam. He also won the precursor to the modern ATP Finals - the World Championship Tennis tournament in 1975. He is also the only African-American male player to be ranked Number 1 in the world. Ashe was a 4-time Davis Cup winner and played a huge part in the USA dominating the competition in the 1960s.

Unfortunately, Ashe contracted HIV from a blood transfusion a few years after his retirement. The great man even during his period of illness fought hard to educate the public about HIV and AIDS through the Arthur Ashe Foundation.

The legend in him still lives on in more ways than one: The primary tennis court of the US Open is named after him. The Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award is award by ESPYS every year. Ashe posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1993.

Ashe was also a proficient Doubles player winning 18 Doubles titles including 2 Grand Slam titles.