US Open Re-Lived: Althea Gibson

The Tennis Podcast

David Law

Sports & Recreation, Wimbledon, Sports, Tennis

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2020

⏱️ 93 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this special edition of Tennis Re-Lived, we examine the life, career and legacy of Althea Gibson, the first black player to compete in and win Grand Slam titles.

We cover her early life growing up in Harlem, her development as a tennis player under the guidance of Dr Eaton and Dr Johnson, Alice Marble’s influential letter challenging the USLTA’s whites-only culture, Gibson’s dramatic first appearance at the US Nationals at Forest Hills in 1950, her friendship and doubles partnership with Angela Buxton, her US Open and Wimbledon titles in 1957 and 1958, the way tennis turned its back on her, and the desperately sad final few decades of her life as she lived in poverty.

We also speak to people who knew her to get a sense of what she was like. Tennis historian Steve Flink tells us what made her such a good player, journalist Richard Evans remembers taking her to the Wimbledon ball, Mary Carillo recounts the first time she met Gibson and the WTA’s emergency meeting to raise funds for her, Zina Garrison looks back on her final encounter with Gibson, and Leslie Allen talks in depth about her experience of being a black person in tennis.

What was it like following in Gibson’s footsteps and constantly being compared to her? How did racism in tennis manifest itself during her career? And how did Allen feel at the unveiling of Gibson’s statue at last year’s US Open?

The Tennis Podcast is presented by Catherine Whitaker and David Law, and features Matt Roberts. It is produced weekly year-round, and daily during the Grand Slam tournaments. It is crowdfunded by listeners each December.

Coming soon: Tennis Re-Lived: Arthur Ashe and daily US Open podcasts.

* PODCAST LINK *

If you enjoy listening to The Tennis Podcast, please spread the word and share our link on your social media platforms - https://podfollow.com/the-tennis-podcast

* NEWSLETTER *

*SHOP*

Let everyone know how you feel with our new I LOVE TENNIS range - https://thetennispodcast.teemill.com/

* EMAIL *

We hope that the podcast helps to provide some form of escape during these challenging times. If you ever feel like writing to us, our e-mail is open – info@tennispodcast.net

*REDDIT *

We have a sub-reddit page! It's a growing online community where over 950 listeners chat about the show and all things tennis. Join in - https://www.reddit.com/r/thetennispodcast/

* KICKSTARTER *

We are crowdfunded for 2020, but if you’d like to receive a reminder e-mail when we launch our next Kickstarter in December, then you can put your details here - http://eepurl.com/gwWILX

*SOCIAL MEDIA *

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetennispodcast/

Twitter - www.twitter.com/tennispodcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, this is Mary and Bartoli. I'm Matt Villander. This is Mary Carillo. I'm San Roenka. I'm Lainey Huit. I'm Andy Murray.
0:06.8	This is Yannick Noah and you're listening to the tennis podcast.
0:20.8	Hello folks and welcome to the tennis podcast and a very special edition of the tennis podcast and back by
0:28.5	popular demand brackets by David Law of tennis relived. We told you it would be coming back. Of course it was coming back.
0:37.3	Don't worry, we know that actual live tennis is happening. This tennis relived and our second one prior to the US
0:45.5	open is not in place of us talking about live tennis and related things. It is an edition and a very special
0:53.5	and necessary edition as well. This one will be focusing on the life, the career, the legacy of Althea Gibson and our next one will be
1:03.5	focusing on the very same of Arthur Ash, respectively the first African American woman and man to win Grand Slam titles.
1:13.5	In Althea Gibson's case, the first African American person to be admitted to play professional tennis. An extraordinary woman, an extraordinarily important figure in tennis' history and one that hasn't been sufficiently
1:30.5	remembered or given her juice always over the years. We're hoping to write that in a very tiny, tiny way.
1:39.5	Certainly been an extraordinary learning experience for us to get to know these two players and their significance in tennis history.
1:49.5	Thank you David for your enthusiasm for tennis relived for getting us to this point.
1:56.5	It's very different what we're doing today and what we're doing with the Arthur Ash podcast as well. When we were doing the Roland Garros relived, Wimbledon and the Olympics, they were all about events or matches or moments in time, specific moments in time.
2:13.5	When we came up to realizing that the US Open for a start was going to happen and we really don't have two weeks worth of shows to film, much as I'd love to come up with 20 wonderful matches and memories which no doubt we will get to in the years to come.
2:30.5	David had a list of 12 Pete Sanpras matches that he submitted for the short list of US Open relived.
2:37.5	And 15 Jimmy Connors matches.
2:40.5	Including all five from 1991.
2:46.5	When we came to look at this and we started to try to think, well, what should we do?
2:53.5	I personally suddenly realized the gaping chasm in my knowledge and my reading of the game's history.
3:01.5	And I think particularly, Althea Gibson, I feel ashamed not to know what I now know.
3:09.5	And what we want to do with this show is tell the stories that we've discovered and to properly tell their history as best as we can.
3:20.5	Yeah, I think we all knew that line first black woman to play the US Open and win Grand Sam Taitors.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from David Law, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of David Law and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.