Tennis

Serena Williams Wins 2015 Australia Open

The Women Tennis world number one, American Serena Williams, has defeated world number two, Russian Maria Sharapova, to win her fifth Australian Open and her 19th Grand Slam title. By winning, she has surpassed both Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert in the number  of major singles titles.

 August 25: Birthday of Athea Gibson, the first black to with a Grand Slam Title, the French Open.

Athea Gibson was born  on August 25, 1927, in Silver, South Carolina, from two cotton sharecropers parents.  She was an American tennis player and professional golfer. In 1956, she won the French Open, becoming the first black to win  a Grand Slam title and hence  cross the color line of international tennis. In both 1957 and 1958 , she won both the Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals, the precursor of the U.S. Open. This won her the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year. During her career,  she won 11 Grand Slam tournaments, including six doubles titles. She was  inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. In the early 1960s she also became the first black player to compete on the women's professional golf tour. She died on  September 28, 2003.

 Serena Williams has dropped out of Wimbledon. Will she make it to the US Open?