Arthur Ashe Won the First US Open in 1968, But Someone Else Took the Prize Money
In tennis, the ending is usually simple: the winner lifts the trophy and takes home the biggest cheque, the runner-up applauds and leaves empty-handed. The very first US Open broke that rule entirely.
The 1968 US Open final: Ashe vs. Okker
The 1968 tournament marked the start of the Open Era, the moment amateur and professional players were finally allowed to compete against each other at a major for the first time. It turned a routine American championship into a symbol of tennis stepping into the modern age, and Arthur Ashe stood right at the centre of it.
His opponent in the final was Tom Okker of the Netherlands, nicknamed "The Flying Dutchman" for his speed and elegant style. The two met at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York, for a five-set battle that went the distance, with Ashe eventually closing it out in a tense fifth set.
Final score: 14-12, 5-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. That marathon first set is no typo: the tiebreak didn't exist yet in 1968, so sets were played to a two-game advantage no matter how long that took. The US Open itself would become one of the first majors to introduce the tiebreak just two years later, in 1970.
Arthur Ashe became the first men's singles champion of the US Open era, and the first African-American man to win a Grand Slam singles title.
Why the champion didn't get the winner's cheque
Here's the twist that makes this final one of tennis history's strangest stories: Ashe never received the winner's prize money.
The 1968 US Open was the first Grand Slam to offer prize money at all, a total pot of $100,000, with $14,000 earmarked for the men's singles champion. But claiming it wasn't as simple as winning the final, because tennis in 1968 recognised three different player categories, not two. There were amateurs, who couldn't earn a cent without losing their status. There were full professionals, who played for money but had only just been allowed back into the majors. And there was a brand-new middle category, "registered players", amateurs who were permitted to collect prize money at select tournaments while keeping their amateur standing everywhere else.
Ashe stayed a pure amateur. He was serving as a lieutenant in the US Army and needed that status to remain eligible for the Davis Cup, so he never registered. Okker had registered. That single administrative difference meant Ashe legally couldn't accept the $14,000 cheque, while Okker legally could, even in defeat.
Ashe left Forest Hills with a $20-per-day expense allowance, roughly $280 in total, for winning the biggest title of his career. Okker, for context, was no journeyman: he'd beaten Pancho Gonzales and Ken Rosewall on his way to the final, and would go on to reach a career-high ranking of world No. 3.
Interestingly, the women's draw saw no such confusion. Virginia Wade won the inaugural women's title and collected her full $6,000 cheque without issue, since she wasn't bound by the same amateur restrictions Ashe was navigating for the Davis Cup.
A win that was never about the money
It's a strange picture on paper: the champion goes home with pocket change, the runner-up cashes the biggest cheque of the tournament. But the story has stuck around for over half a century for a reason that has nothing to do with dollars.
Ashe's win broke a barrier that no prize money could match. He became the first African-American man to win a major singles title, cementing his place in tennis history regardless of what was or wasn't in his bank account. That same year he helped lead the US Davis Cup team to the championship, ending a five-year drought, and by December 1968 he was ranked the world's number one American player. Two years later he turned professional, and by 1975 he was lifting the Wimbledon trophy against Jimmy Connors.
Okker, for his part, isn't remembered as the man who cashed in on a technicality. He's remembered as one half of one of the most unusual, and most talked-about, finals the sport has ever produced. The 1968 US Open remains proof that some of tennis's greatest stories were never really about what was written on the cheque.
At the ACE hub, we've always believed tennis history is full of moments like this: where character outlasts the scoreboard. Discover our latest collection, built for players who understand that heritage is worth more than headlines.