Connors, but won the doubles with partner Tom Okker. Despite boycotts against South African sport, Ashe believed that his presence could help break down stereotypes and that by competing and winning the tournament, it would stand as an example of the result of integration, and help bring about change in apartheid South Africa. He reached the singles final again in 1974, losing in straight sets to Connors for the second consecutive year. In 1977, Ashe addressed a small crowd of boycott supporters at the U.S. Open and admitted that he had been wrong to participate in South Africa and once again supported the boycott of South African players after he had tried to purchase tickets for some young Africans for a tennis match in South Africa, and was told to use an "Africans only" counter. In the media, Ashe called for South Africa to be expelled from the professional tennis circuit and Davis Cup competition. In May 1975, Ashe beat Björn Borg to win the season-ending championship WCT Finals in Dallas, Texas. On July 5, 1975, in the first all-American Wimbledon final since 1947, Ashe, seeded sixth and just a few days short of his 32nd birthday, won Wimbledon at his ninth attempt, defeating the overwhelming favourite and defending champion, Jimmy Connors. Ashe had never beaten Connors in any of their previous encounters and Connors had not dropped a set in any of the six earlier rounds, but Ashe played an almost perfect game of tactical tennis to win in four sets. In the lead-up to the final, the two players' relationship was already strained. Connors was suing the ATP, with Ashe as its president, for $10 million for alleged restraint of trade after opposition from the ATP and French officials meant he was refused entry to the 1974 French Open as a contracted member of World Team Tennis (WTT). Just two days before the start of the Wimbledon tournament, it had been announced that Connors was now suing Ashe for $5 million for comments in a letter Ashe had written to ATP members in his role as president, criticizing Connors' insistence that Davis Cup captain Dennis Ralston should be fired and Connors' "unpatriotic" boycott of the competition which had started after Ralston left him out of the team against the West Indies in Jamaica in March 1972. On the final day, Ashe pointedly and symbolically wore red, white and