When A Lighting Bolt Signified Change Coming To Tennis

By Randy Walker

@TennisPublisher

It was perhaps the most famous  and most symbolic – weather happening in the history of tennis.

A bolt of lightning struck the U.S. Championships at the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills on August 29, 1950. The lightning bolt hit the top of the famed stone horseshoe bowled stadium and caused for one of the stone eagle statues the line the top of the stadium to crash to the ground. To some observers at the time and to historians and those who poetically document the game, it signified a major change in the sport that was occurring at that moment. It was when Althea Gibson broke the color barrier at the U.S. Championships.

Gibson was playing in her famed debut at the U.S. Championships at Forest Hills, the first black player to compete at the event, or any major tennis event, and, after her first round victory over Barbara Knapp, she was entwined in second round match against the reigning Wimbledon champion Louise Brough. Unlike her first round against Knapp played on the far-off Court 14, Gibson’s match against Brough was played on the Grandstand Court, the No. 2 court at the West Side Tennis Club, adjacent to the Stadium Court. After Gibson easily lost the first set 6-2, she found her grove in the second set winning it 6-4 and went toe-for-toe with Wimbledon champ deep into the third set. It was a remarkable performance, the event rookie Gibson, banned for playing against the best players because of the color of her skin, on the verge of an earth-shaking upset of the greatest woman player in the world in her first big tournament appearance. With no tiebreakers played in those days, Gibson lead 7-6 in the third set…when nature, or the universe, spoke. A massive thunderstorm erupted, causing for the match to be suddenly stopped. Then, out of the sky, a massive bolt of lightning struck the top of the Forest Hills Stadium causing for one of the massive stone eagle statues perched around the top rim of the stadium’s bowl to crash to the ground. No one was injured but it became a poetic piece of symbolism for what was happening in the sport of tennis at that very moment – change was coming with breaking of the color barrier and the arrival of Althea Gibson.

Years later, after Gibson did eventually lose to Brough upon the resumption of play the following day, Bud Collins, the late, great Hall of Fame journalist and historian, spoke to Gibson about her match with Brough and the lightning bolt incident and she said to Collins, “When lightning put down that eagle maybe it was an omen times was a-changing.”

Fittingly, the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) and Marvel Comics showcased this bolt of lightning in a symbolic way in the Althea Gibson comic book that it distributed to young kids during the tournament’s Fan Week. The 2025 is, of course, the 75th anniversary of this Gibson color-breaking appearance and USTA’s theme for the tournament is “Celebrating 75 Years of Breaking Barriers.”

Upon the resumption of play the following day, Gibson was not able to maintain her momentum from the previous day and lost all three games that were played, falling 9-7 in the third set. Gibson admitted in her re-published autobiography “I Always Wanted To Be Somebody” (for sale and download here: https://a.co/d/250zWhi

Collins documented the Gibson 1950 U.S. Championships debut and breaking the color barrier, specifically in his 1950 year chapter of his book “The Bud Collins History of Tennis” (for sale and download here: https://a.co/d/7pyJPEl) which is excerpted below.

An historic breakthrough was the appearance of a future champion and Hall of Famer, 23-year-old Althea Gibson, the first black to play in the U.S. Championships at Forest Hills. (Although she had been admitted to the U.S. Indoor in 1949, winning a round, and again, in 1950, to beat Midge Gladman Buck, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, and reach the final, a 6-0, 6-2, defeat by Nancy Chaffee.) But Forest Hills was the biggie that everybody noticed, and Althea’s was a leap of the color bar in tennis every bit as significant as Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers had been three years before. To cement that reality, Gibson nearly toppled the Wimbledon champ, fourth-seeded Louise Brough, in the second round.

Starting off with a prophetic victory over Barbara Knapp, 6-2, 6-2, Gibson overcame nerves and a 1-6 opening set against Brough to seize the second, 6-3. As the sky darkened, Gibson battled to a 7-6 lead in the decisive set. At that moment, Brough may have been reprieved: Forest Hills was struck by a thunderstorm so fierce that lightning knocked one of the brooding concrete eagles from the upper rim of the stadium. Resuming the following afternoon, Gibson may have had too much time to think about victory lying within her long reach—four points away. Brough held serve, and won the next two games to escape, 6-1, 3-6, 9-7.

“When lightning put down that eagle,” Gibson laughed years later, “maybe it was an omen times was a-changing. Brough was a little too experienced for me in that situation, but my day would come.” And so it did with titles in 1957 and 1958.