With the 2024 Wimbledon Championships underway in the United Kingdom, here’s a look at stamps the Postal Service has released to honor American tennis stars:
• Hazel Wightman (1990): Known as the “Queen Mother of American Tennis” and “Lady Tennis,” the Olympic gold medalist led women’s tennis in the early 20th century. She created the Wightman Cup — an international women’s amateur competition that continues today.
• Arthur Ashe (2005): One of the most influential professional American players, Ashe won the U.S. Open in 1968, making him the first African American to win a Grand Slam event. Known for his for civil rights and other philanthropic causes, the main stadium of the U.S. Open in Flushing, NY — the largest tennis stadium in the world — is named after him.
• Black Heritage: Althea Gibson (2013): The first Black player to win one of the four major singles tournaments, Gibson twice captured Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships (now known as the U.S. Open) and became the top-ranked player in the world.
• “Little Mo” (2019): In the early 1950s, tennis champion Maureen Connolly Brinker dominated her sport, becoming the first woman to win a single-season Grand Slam. Since then, no American singles player has won all four major tournaments in a calendar year.
Wimbledon — the oldest tennis tournament in the world and regarded by many as the most prestigious — is the only major event still played on grass.