Arthur Ashe was born in Richmond, Virginia, on 10 July 1943. His mother died in 1950, a few months before his seventh birthday. He began playing tennis at seven and met racism early: he was kept from playing white players and from the city's indoor courts. He finished high school first in his class and went to UCLA, then one of the strongest college tennis programmes, where in 1965 he won the individual NCAA title and helped UCLA to the team championship.
In 1963 he became the first Black player selected for the United States Davis Cup team. In ten years with the team he helped the US win the cup five times: 1963, 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1978. His breakthrough came in 1968, the first year amateurs and professionals could meet in the majors. Still an amateur, he beat Tom Okker of the Netherlands on 9 September to win the first US Open. Because he was receiving a Davis Cup per diem, he could not accept the $14,000 prize, which went to Okker. He also won the US Amateur Championships that year, the only player ever to win both in the same year, and was ranked No. 1.
He won the Australian Open in 1970. In 1975, nearing his 32nd birthday and having lost all three previous meetings with Jimmy Connors, he beat the top seed 6–1, 6–1, 5–7, 6–4 in the Wimbledon final. He was ranked No. 1 again that year. He used his standing beyond the court: in 1973 he became the first Black player to compete in an integrated sporting event in South Africa, and he later helped bar South Africa from the Davis Cup over apartheid.
In July 1979, aged 36, he had a heart attack while holding a tennis clinic in New York, and he announced his retirement on 16 April 1980. He became captain of the US Davis Cup team, which won the cup in 1981 and 1982. He contracted HIV from a blood transfusion during heart bypass surgery in 1983 and died on 6 February 1993, aged 49. The main stadium of the US Open is named after him.