EntityQ53550· pop 47· linked from 1,885 articles

Althea Gibson

American tennis player (1927-2003)

Person · Open Library

Born: 1927
Died: 2003-09-28
Works: 4

Top works

So Much to Live For
I Always Wanted to Be Somebody
I Always Wanted to Be Somebody
So much to live for
I always wanted to be somebody

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting · Silver, South Carolina, USA

Known for

Althea — Althea Gibson2014
The Journey of the African-American Athlete — Self (archive footage)1996
The Player — Althea Gibson (uncredited)1992
The Mike Douglas Show — Self1961
The Horse Soldiers — Lukey1959
What's My Line? — Self - Mystery Guest1950
The Ed Sullivan Show — Self1948

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Country: US
Active from: 1928-04-03
Active to: 2003-11-17

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 38
Total plays: 151

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice
· 1994 · cited 51,798x
Clustal W and Clustal X version 2.0
· 2007 · cited 24,820x
Reproducible, interactive, scalable and extensible microbiome data science using QIIME 2
· 2019 · cited 19,828x
Fast, scalable generation of high‐quality protein multiple sequence alignments using Clustal Omega
· 2011 · cited 14,251x
Enzymatic assembly of DNA molecules up to several hundred kilobases
· 2009 · cited 9,813x

via Crossref · CC0

Key facts

Country sports: United States
Born: ( 1927-08-25 ) August 25, 1927 , Clarendon County, South Carolina , U.S.
Died: September 28, 2003 (2003-09-28) (aged 76), East Orange, New Jersey , U.S.
Height: 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Plays: Right-handed
Int tennis hof: 1971 ( member page )
Highest ranking: No. 1 (1957)
Australian open: F ( 1957 )
French open: W ( 1956 )
Wimbledon: W ( 1957 , 1958 )
Us open: W ( 1957 , 1958 )

via Wikipedia infobox

Key dates

Born: 25 August 1927
Died: 28 September 2003

via Wikidata · CC0

Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Althea
Family name: Gibson
Gender: female
Citizenship: United States
Place of death: East Orange
Occupation: professional golfer
Languages spoken: Middle English
Sport: golf
Country for sport: United States

Article

Althea Neale Gibson (August 25, 1927 – September 28, 2003) was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first Black player to win a Grand Slam event (the French Open). The following year she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals (precursor of the US Open), then won both again in 1958 and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. In all, she won 11 Grand Slam titles: five singles titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title. "She is one of the greatest players who ever lived," said Bob Ryland, a tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus and Serena Williams. "Martina [Navratilova] couldn't touch her. I think she'd beat the Williams sisters." Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971 and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1980. In the early 1960s, she also became the first Black player to compete in the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

At a time when racism and prejudice were widespread in sports and in society, Gibson was often compared to Jackie Robinson. "Her road to success was a challenging one," said Billie Jean King "but I never saw her back down." "To anyone, she was an inspiration, because of what she was able to do at a time when it was enormously difficult to play tennis at all if you were Black." said former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. "I am honored to have followed in such great footsteps," wrote Venus Williams. "Her accomplishments set the stage for my success, and through players like myself and Serena and many others to come, her legacy will live on."