🖤❤️💛💚Happy Black History Month🖤❤️💛💚 Droppin Knowledge:
✊🏾Althea Gibson broke barriers in tennisBefore Serena Williams won the 1999 US Open, there was Althea Gibson.
In 1949, Gibson attempted to enter into the United States Lawn Tennis Association's championship in Forest Hills, New York. When she wasn't invited to compete in any qualifiers, fellow player Alice Marble wrote a letter on her behalf to American Lawn Tennis magazine, urging members to let her compete.
Marble claimed that if Gibson was a real challenge, players should face off against this challenge on the courts.
So, Gibson was invited to compete in a qualifying event in New Jersey, where she earned a place at Forest Hills.
In 1950 she became the first African-American player to compete at the US Nationals at Forest Hills. Though she lost her first year, she later became the first African-American player to win US Nationals in 1957. She was also the first to win a singles title at Wimbledon that same year.
She then kept her streak going in 1958, winning consecutive titles at both Wimbledon and the US Nationals.
Tip SlayzGemini