Arthur Ashe, Tennis Star, is Dead at 49 CDC Daily UpdateImportant note: Information in this article was accurate in 1993. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Arthur Ashe, Tennis Star, is Dead at 49

New York Times (02/08/93), P. B9 (Finn, Robin)


Arthur Ashe, former tennis champion, died of AIDS-related pneumonia on Saturday at the age of 49. Ashe was the only black man to win Wimbledon and the United States and Australian Opens. He spent most of his tennis career fighting discrimination in the sport, and the last year of his life was spent fighting for AIDS-related causes. He announced his AIDS condition on April 8, 1992, after being forced by USA Today, which threatened to publish an article about his illness as soon as it could confirm it. Ashe, who said he believed he became infected with HIV through a transfusion of contaminated blood during his second round of heart-bypass surgery in 1983, first learned of his infection after he entered New York Hospital for emergency brain surgery in September 1988. The surgery and a biopsy revealed the presence of toxoplasmosis, a parasitic AIDS-related condition. Ashe had been hospitalized in recent weeks with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, according to an AIDS researcher. Last September, Ashe formed a foundation to benefit AIDS causes at the United States Open, using top tennis pros to start his 15-month, $5- million fund- raising effort. He said, "The foundation was something I always knew I wanted to do, long before I went public on April 8." He referred to the date as the start of his life as an AIDS activist.


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