Artist Melissa Koby creates US Open theme art ^{CEFR B1}

Melissa Koby, a Jamaican-born artist based in Florida, became the first Black artist chosen to create imagery for the 2025 US Open. The tournament theme, "75 Years of Breaking Barriers," honours Althea Gibson, the tennis pioneer who challenged racial and gender limits in the sport.

Koby said she channelled the spirit of her late grandmother while making the work. Her grandmother left school early and raised nine children in hard circumstances. That family history shaped Koby's emotional approach and the way she wanted to tell a story through images.

The artwork layers several profiles of Gibson over a US Open-blue court and adds symbolic elements such as the Statue of Liberty, Arthur Ashe Stadium and the Tiffany trophies. Koby began with digital art, moved to cutting paper by hand, and later used a laser cutter to make pieces to sell. Her images will appear as posters and banners across the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during the tournament.

Now a mother, Koby hopes the work will encourage young people, especially Black and Caribbean children, to follow creative paths. She called Gibson the foremother of later Black women in tennis.