The Open era of tennis began with the British Hard Courts Championships, staged at the West Hants Club in Bournemouth, Dorset in April, 1968, following an emergency meeting of the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) the previous month, which abolished the distinction between amateur and professional players in a limited schedule of 12 tournaments. Since then, the oldest winner of the Wimbledon men’s singles title was American Arthur Ashe Jr., who was 31 years, 11 months and 25 days old when he beat number one seed, and defending champion, Jimmy Connors 6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 in the final on July 5, 1975. In so doing, he also became the first and, so far, only black man to win the men’s singles at the All England Club.
Seeded sixth, Ashe beat number three seed Bjorn Borg – who would, of course go on to win five consecutive men’s singles titles between 1976 and 1980 – in four sets in his quarter-final and number sixteen seed Tony Roche in five sets in his semi-final to set up a meeting with 22-year-old Connors, who was overwhelming favourite, in the final. Nevertheless, Ashe breezed through the first set 6-1 in under 20 minutes and the second, by the same scoreline, almost as quickly. He also led 3-1 in the third set, before Connors regained his rhythm and recovered to win 5-7. In the fourth set Ashe broke Connors’ serve to lead 5-4 and comfortably served out the match to win the third, and final, Grand Slam singles title of his career.
Following heart surgery, Ashe officially retired from competitive tennis in April, 1980. Three years later, he underwent heart surgery for a second time, during which he is believed to acquired human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from a blood transfusion. He died from pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) on February 6, 1993, aged just 49.