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If the playing field of life isn’t level, neither is the tennis court. A young black man named Arthur Ashe discovered this early growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia in the 1950s. So Ashe learned to play tennis on the streets. He went on to become the first black tennis player to win the U.S. Open in 1968. But that didn’t stop South Africa from denying Ashe a visa to play in the South African Open.

Coming from a tough upbringing, Ashe didn’t wait for the twilight of his career before extending his hand to other boys in need of the kind of help he never got. He was just 25 when he set up his first social program. Then, on a trip through Cameroon a year later, he spotted the young Yannick Noah, and pushed the French Tennis Federation to take the gifted youngster under its wing, and the rest is history.

Check out this short insight into how Ashe changed the game of tennis forever with the help from Le Coq Sportif, from the man who knew him best, Yannick Noah.

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