On May 26, 1956, Althea Gibson became the first black player to win a major singles title when she defeated Angela Mortimer of Britain in the women’s singles final of the French Championships. Gibson’s win was her first in her fifth meeting with Mortimer and as the Associated Press reported that day, “Miss Gibson was so happy at beating Miss Mortimer for the first time that she leaped over the net to put her arms around her erstwhile jinx.”
It was a memorable time in Paris for Gibson, as she describes in this short excerpt from her newly republished autobiography “I Always Wanted To Be Somebody” (for sale and download here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559971/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_6K9RRQYSN380EYNJ454A)
As far as Paris itself was concerned, the main feeling I have about it is that if you don’t know anybody there, it’s just like living alone. I enjoyed being there because I’d read so much about it for so many years, about how exotic it was and how beautiful. And also because when I was in England in 1951, and Sugar Ray was touring Europe and I met him and his boys in London, all they talked about was how wonderful Paris was. They raved about it. I remembered that they had said they stayed in a hotel on the Champs-Elysees, so when I got to Paris, and was put up at the Hotel Miami just off the Etoile, I headed for the Champs-Elysees right away. I couldn’t wait to see it.
It didn’t strike me as such a big deal, although there is something colorful about it with the interesting shops on the avenue, the little restaurants, the night clubs and the theaters. Actually, it reminded me of 42nd Street, except that the Champs-Elysees is wider.
The most excitement I had in Paris was right on the tennis court in Roland Garros Stadium. I was playing my friend Angela Buxton in the semifinals, and all of a sudden one of the straps on my brassiere broke. Angela came over to help me, but there wasn’t much we could do about it out there in front of all those people, so I rushed off to the dressing room to repair the damage. When I got back on the court, I found myself involved in a federal case. They were having a big meeting at the umpire’s chair and they told me that I’d had no right to leave the court like that without permission, and that if Angela requested it, they would default me right then and there. Angela protested that that was the last thing she wanted, so all the little men went away at last and we finished the match. I won it and went into the finals against England’s other Angela, my jinx opponent, Angela Mortimer.
The final-round match was largely uneventful except for one time when I lost my temper for a second. This is what the London Sunday Express said about the match, which I won 6-3, 11-9.
“As always, Angela Mortimer began nervously, groping for a length, forced into wide errors by the heavy pressure, and serving double faults. She made a real fight of the fourth game but lost it after seven deuces and four advantage points. In the remaining five games of the set, she won only seven points against the American’s twenty.
“Though the American, at 10-9 in the second set, nervously lost her service and angrily slammed a ball far into the crowd after a double fault, she made no mistake the next time and fittingly finished a love game with an unanswerable ace down the center line.”
I had become the first Negro ever to win the championship of France; in fact, the first Negro ever to win any of the world’s major singles tennis championships. That night Angela Buxton’s father took Angela and me out to dinner, to celebrate. I was back at my hotel, and in bed, a little after ten.
Originally published in 1960, “I Always Wanted To Be Somebody” had fallen out of circulation and was only available for exorbitant prices by book resellers. However, New Chapter Press, a leading publisher of tennis books, worked with the Althea Gibson family, estate and the newly formed Althea Gibson Community Tennis Association to republish the book and make it available for the masses at a reasonable $19.95 price ($9.95 via Amazon Kindle) A portion of sales for the book will benefit the Althea Gibson Community Tennis Association.
“I Always Wanted To Be Somebody” is the intimate and candid story of a girl who grew up in the asphalt environs of Harlem, skipping school, drinking hard liquor, stealing and fist-fighting, but went on to break the color barrier in tennis and achieving the pinnacle of the sport by winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships and becoming an inspiration for many future champions.
Hall of Fame tennis legend and pioneer Billie Jean King, who said she used to sleep with “I Always Wanted To Be Somebody” under her pillow as a girl, contributed the foreword to the new edition, writing, “Althea was our Jackie Robinson of tennis, and the barriers show broke down and the doors she opened have paved the way for generations of tennis players. Her contributions to our sport and to our world are many. Without Althea, there may not have been an Arthur Ashe, Leslie Allen, Zina Garrison, James Blake, Chanda Rubin, Mal Washington, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Coco Gauff, Frances Tiafoe or Naomi Osaka.”
Gibson is one of the most iconic and talented female athletes of all time, breaking the color barrier in tennis and becoming the first black player to play and win at Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships. After becoming the first black player to participate in the U.S. Championships (the modern-day U.S. Open) in 1950 (three years after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball), she won the first of her back-to-back titles there in 1957, also winning singles titles at Wimbledon in 1957 and 1958. After her tennis career, she also became the first black person on the LPGA Tour in golf. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971 and died in 2003. She was an athlete, coach, leader, activist, singer, actor and one of the most illustrious and celebrated tennis players in history.
Founded in 1987, New Chapter Press (www.NewChapterMedia.com) is the publisher of many leading tennis books, including “The Greatest Tennis Matches of All-Time” and “Pete Sampras: Greatness Revisited” by Steve Flink, “The Education of a Tennis Player” by Rod Laver with Bud Collins, “The Bud Collins History of Tennis” by Bud Collins, “The Wimbledon Final That Never Was” by Sidney Wood, “Juan Martin del Potro: The Gentle Giant” by Sebastian Torok, “Titanic: The Tennis Story” by Lindsay Gibbs, among others.
