The Story Behind the Statue: “Soul in Flight: A Memorial to Arthur Ashe” turns 25 at US Open

NEW YORK—An iconic landmark at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is celebrating a 25th birthday at the 2025 US Open.

Soul in Flight: A Memorial to Arthur Ashe was sculpted by Eric Fischl at the dawn of the new millennium in tribute to the three-time Grand Slam champion and tennis trailblazer for whom the US Open’s center court is named.

“When I met with the board, the first thing I said was, ‘I was born to do this,’” Fischl told Jon Wertheim in an interview on Tennis Channel Live at the US Open.

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A tennis enthusiast, Fischl was inspired by the service motion, a shot the sculptor calls both “the most beautiful” and also “the one in which the server has most control.”

Standing at 14 feet high and weighing two tons, the bronze-cast sculpture is located exactly between Corona Park’s Unisphere and Arthur Ashe Stadium, the subject himself wielding not a racquet but a baton. That’s not an accident.

“That’s what [Ashe] represents: the start of something that others have to carry on,” says Fischl.

Ashe retired from the sport in 1980 after peaking at No. 2 in the ATP rankings and winning 44 Open-Era titles. He went on to become a writer, activist and Davis Cup captain before passing away in 1993 after contracting HIV from a blood transfusion during a heart bypass surgery.

Who, then, did Fischl use as the subject?

Drawing inspiration from a photo of a classic service motion, then-American player and now-Tennis Channel commentator Jan-Michael Gambill served as the model.

Now, thickened by time as Wertheim notes, the story can be told.

“I’m proud that it achieved certainly some of the things I’m talking about,” said Fischl, happy to look back on one of his signature works, “and at the service of a sport I truly love. What more could I want?”