On the 87th anniversary of her birth and the opening day of the tournament she won twice, Althea Gibson was honored in a special Google doodle that headlines the front page of the world’s most popular search engine. The animated doodle depicts Gibson hitting a forehand and overhead on a court with a baseline that spells “google.”

In honor of Gibson, FTW highlights five things to know about the tennis Hall of Famer.

1. She broke the color barrier at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

In 1950, three years after Jackie Robinson made his Major League Baseball debut, Gibson became the first African-American to play in the U.S. Open. Shewas accepted thanks, in part, to an editorial written by the four-time champion Alice Marble. ”If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen,” Marble wrote, ”it’s also time we acted a little more like gentle people and less like sanctimonious hypocrites.”

Gibson integrated Wimbledon the next year.

2. Gibson won five Grand Slams.

Gibson’s first win was at the 1956 French Open in her first and only appearance at the tournament. She then went back-to-back at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1957 and 1958. At each of those tournaments, Gibson was the first black player to win the title. She narrowly missed a career Grand Slam by losing in the finals of her only trip to the Australian Open.

At the time, of her retirement, her Slam total was tied for 11th most in history. She is still tied for 22nd, along with Maria Sharapova and Martina Hingis, among others.

Overall, Gibson was an impressive 53-9 in Grand Slams.

3. She turned professional after winning her second U.S. Open.

Because tennis wasn’t yet in its Open Era, Gibson was an unpaid amateur for each of her Slam wins. She turned pro in 1958. Gibson later tried her hand at golf, though she didn’t experience much success.

4. Sugar Ray Robinson befriended Gibson.

Gibson was a New York City paddle tennis champion who dropped out of school and was “living pretty wild,” as she’d later recalled. She once approached Robinson, the future middleweight champion in a bowling alley, and they struck up a friendship. He even bought her a saxophone. Gibson later won the New York’s girl’s tennis championship and moved to the south to live with two prominent doctors who helped nurture her tennis career. One of them would later do the same for Arthur Ashe.

5. Gibson dismissed efforts to make herself a “symbol.”

Though she appreciated how unlikely her story was (“Shaking hands with the Queen of England [after winning Wimbledon] was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, N.C.”), Gibson “chaffed at efforts to make her a symbol of black achievement,” as The New York Times wrote in her 2003 obituary.

When a reporter asked if she was proud to be compared to Jackie Robinson as an outstanding representative of her race, Gibson replied: “No. I don’t consider myself to be a representative of my people. I am thinking of me and nobody else.”

In 2007, on the 50th anniversary of her first title, Gibson was honored by the U.S. Open with a pre-session ceremony featuring Aretha Franklin and Billie Jean King, among others. That was followed by matches involving both Williams’ sisters.

“I have all the opportunities today because of people like Althea,” Venus Williams said that night. “Just trying to follow in her footsteps.”