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    Dick Savitt Dies at 95; Won Australian and Wimbledon Tennis Titles in 1951

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    He was the second American to win both Grand Slam tournaments in the same year, and he was ranked among the world’s top 10 players four times.Dick Savitt, the tennis Hall of Famer who won the men’s singles championships at the 1951 Australian and Wimbledon Grand Slam tournaments but dropped out of full-time play a year later while at the height of his game, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 95.His death was confirmed by his son, Bob.Savitt became the second American to win both the Australian and Wimbledon men’s titles in a calendar year. Don Budge had accomplished the feat in 1938. Only Jimmy Connors (1974) and Pete Sampras (1994 and 1997) have matched them.Savitt was ranked among the top 10 American players six times in the 1950s and among the world’s top 10 four times, even though after 1952 he confined his Grand Slam tournament play to the United States Nationals at Forest Hills, Queens. He bested leading American players in domestic tournaments while pursuing a business career.He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1976.In 1951, Savitt defeated Ken McGregor, a native of Australia, in the Australian championships. “The Australian was a big shock to the tennis world,” Savitt told Nancy Gill McShea in an interview for the International Tennis Hall of Fame 60 years later. “It put me on the map.”He reached the semifinals of the 1951 French championships but lost to Jaroslav Drobny, who went on to win the singles title. He needed only 61 minutes to defeat McGregor again in the Wimbledon final, becoming the first Jewish player to win the Wimbledon singles championship.Savitt appeared on the cover of Time magazine’s Aug. 27, 1951, issue on the eve of the U.S. Nationals, the forerunner of the U.S. Open. “What he has got is a simple, overpowering attack; a smashing serve and deep, hard-hit ground strokes that keep his opponent scrambling in the backcourt, on the defensive,” Time wrote.Savitt, who stood a sturdy 6-foot-3 and often wore down his opponents, reached the semifinals at Forest Hills. Hampered by a knee infection, he lost to his fellow American Vic Seixas.Savitt was selected for the 1951 U.S. Davis Cup team, which was hoping to avenge its loss to Australia in the 1950 cup finals, formally known as the challenge round. Savitt, ranked as the squad’s No. 1 player, won singles matches in the early rounds. But Frank Shields, the nonplaying captain of the team, removed him from cup play afterward and replaced him with Ted Schroeder, who had been in semiretirement. Shields said he hadn’t been happy with Savitt’s overall play in the previous few months.Savitt and many of his fellow American players were stunned that he was passed over, but Savitt chose not to comment on being cut. The United States lost to Australia, 3-2, in the challenge round.The next year, Savitt reached the semifinals of the Australian championships. After losing there to McGregor, he said he was stepping away from the international tour.But he won the U.S. National Indoor Championships in 1952, 1958 and 1961, becoming the first player to capture that title three times. In 1961, he captured singles and doubles gold medals at the Maccabiah Games, the Jewish Olympics, held in Israel. He later helped develop tennis centers there.Savitt at his home in Manhattan last year.Carly Zavala for The New York TimesTennis trophies on a bookshelf at Savitt’s home. He was ranked among the top 10 American players six times in the 1950s.Carly Zavala for The New York TimesRichard Savitt was born on March 4, 1927, in Bayonne, N.J., the only child of Morris and Kate (Hoberman) Savitt. His father was a food broker who had a business that pursued marketing opportunities for producers.He taught himself to play tennis in his early teens when he was a ball boy at the Berkeley Tennis Club in Orange, N.J., mostly by watching some of the game’s greatest players, including Jack Kramer, Bobby Riggs and Pancho Segura, competing there in New Jersey state tournaments.“I had never seen tennis like that before,” Savitt said in his Hall of Fame interview. “I immediately got Don Budge’s book on tennis to learn how to hit strokes correctly.”But Savitt’s first love was basketball. When his family moved to El Paso in the early 1940s, hoping that the warmer weather would ease his mother’s skin problems, he became an all-state high school basketball player. But he also continued to play tennis and was highly ranked nationally in the junior division.Savitt entered Cornell University in 1946 on a basketball scholarship after serving during World War II in the Navy, which had assigned him to play on basketball teams to entertain service personnel. But injuries hampered him, so he turned to tennis once more and won Eastern collegiate singles and doubles titles. He graduated in 1950 with a degree in economics.In addition to his son, from his marriage to Louise Liberman, which ended in divorce in 1963, Savitt is survived by three grandchildren. His second wife, Annelle Warwick Hayes, died in 2013. Savitt and his son, Bob, who had played on the tennis team at the College of Wooster in Ohio, won the U.S. Father and Son doubles title in 1981.Savitt worked on rigs drilling for oil in Texas and Louisiana and then became a longtime investment banker in New York after leaving full-time tennis.The amateur tennis world where he flourished offered trophies for victories, but no prize money.“You either kept playing and taking under-the-table type payments or you ended up teaching at a club,” Savitt told The Star-Ledger of Newark in 2011. “I didn’t want to do that. I had to decide to keep playing a few more years or get out of the game and go to work in a normal position. That’s what I did.”Maia Coleman More

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      Nick Bollettieri, Nurturer of Tennis Champions, Dies at 91

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      At his training camps, he employed a tough style in developing 10 players who reached the No. 1 world ranking. “He yells at kids, insults them. And they work harder.”Nick Bollettieri, who never competed in elite tennis but was once the world’s most famous tennis coach, developing 10 players who reached the No. 1 international ranking in singles, died on Sunday at his home in Bradenton, Fla. He was 91. David R. Legge, a journalist who is writing an authorized biography about Bollettieri, confirmed his death. Legge said Bollettieri began having renal problems several months ago and that his health had deteriorated since then.Bollettieri was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., in 2014 as a “contributor” to the game. He joined only three others honored solely for their coaching, the longtime Australian Davis Cup captain Harry Hopman and two other Americans, Vic Braden and Dr. Robert Johnson, an advocate for African American junior tennis who mentored Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe.Bollettieri co-founded the Port Washington Tennis Academy on Long Island in 1966, its star pupils including John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis.In the early 1980s, he opened the Bollettieri Academy in Bradenton, Fla., on what were then tomato fields, pioneering the concept of live-in facilities for promising junior tennis players. He sold it in 1987 to the sports agency IMG. Now known as the IMG Academy, it tutors young athletes in many sports and has dozens of tennis courts for the Bollettieri Tennis Program. Bollettieri, who founded that program, became its president.Serena and Venus Williams, Monica Seles, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Maria Sharapova, Marcelo Rios and Boris Becker are among the players who trained or boarded at the academy.Nick Bollettieri spoke to young players at what had been his tennis academy in 2013; he had sold it to the IMG sports agency in 1987, but remained president of the Bollettieri Tennis Program. Edward Linsmier for The New York TimesBollettieri was known for a hard-driving style. As Sports Illustrated put it in 1980: “He yells at kids, insults them. And they work harder. He grabs players and orders them off the court. And they work harder. At junior tournaments, when the Bollettieri contingent arrives, the other kids look at them as if the Marines had just landed. They are the products of a tougher sort of training.”Nicholas James Bollettieri was born on July 31, 1931, in Pelham, N.Y., in Westchester County. His father, James, was a pharmacist, and his mother, Mary Rita (DeFillipo) Bollettieri, was a homemaker.He graduated from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., in 1953, and then saw military service in an airborne division. After his discharge in 1957, he attended law school at the University of Miami. To earn money toward his tuition, he taught tennis at area courts, charging $1.50 for a half-hour lesson, though his experience was limited to some play as a teenager. His first students included Brian Gottfried, who went on to an outstanding tennis career.Bollettieri built his Bradenton, Fla. academy on what were tomato fields. He pioneered the concept of live-in tennis camps. Lutz Bongarts/Bongarts, via Getty ImagesBollettieri quit law school after one year and worked during summers at the John D. Rockefeller Estate in Pocantico Hills, a hamlet in the Westchester town of Mount Pleasant, and winters at the Rockefeller-owned Doral Beach hotel in Puerto Rico, becoming its tennis director. He returned to Florida in 1978 and became an instructor at what was then the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort in Longboat Key before opening his academy in Bradenton.The ABC News program “20/20” profiled the academy in its early years, bringing it national attention.In 2014, Bollettieri was giving private lessons at $900 an hour.“Nick is one of the youngest, most passionate guys on the planet,” Jim Courier, who had won four major singles titles, told The New York Times at the time. “No baloney. He’s not doing it for the money. He loves making a difference and getting meaning from it. As corny as that sounds, it’s true. He has family and more wives than anyone should ever have, but Nick is someone who wakes up in the morning and craves going to the office. It’s what keeps him going.”When Bollettieri was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2014 as a “contributor” to the game, he joined only three others honored solely for their coaching. Carsten Rehder/picture alliance, via Getty ImagesBollettieri’s survivors include his eighth wife, Cindi Eaton; his children from various previous marriages, including his daughters, Danielle Bollettieri, Angelique Bollettieri, Nicole Bollettieri Kroenig and Alexandra Bollettieri; his sons, James, Giovanni and Giacomo; and four grandchildren.Bollettieri was the instruction editor of Tennis Magazine and published the memoirs “My Aces, My Faults” (1996, with Dick Schaap) and “Bollettieri: Changing the Game” (2014). He was the author of the instructional book “Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Handbook” (2001).In his later years, Bollettieri cut down on his schedule and did his coaching on indoor courts.“Today the whole world is playing tennis, and many years ago there were about six countries,” Bollettieri told The Times in 2014. “Now we are competing against the world, so it’s much more difficult for me when somebody comes up and says, ‘Nick, tell us about another champion.’ I’m very reluctant.”Alex Traub More

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      Chris Evert, Tennis Hall of Famer, Says She Has Ovarian Cancer

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      The early-stage cancer was detected after a preventive hysterectomy, and it has not spread elsewhere in her body, according to ESPN.The former tennis star Chris Evert, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion, has an early form of ovarian cancer, she said Friday in a story posted on ESPN.com.The stage 1C cancer was detected after a preventive hysterectomy, and it has not spread elsewhere in her body, according to the story. Ms. Evert, 67, who began the first of six rounds of chemotherapy this week, is an analyst for ESPN.The cancer was removed during the hysterectomy, and there is a greater than 90 percent chance it won’t return, according to the story.“I’ve lived a very charmed life,” Ms. Evert said in the story. “Now I have some challenges ahead of me. But, I have comfort in knowing the chemotherapy is to ensure that cancer does not come back.”A representative for Ms. Evert did not immediately reply to an email late Friday.Ms. Evert is one of the most celebrated players in tennis history. She became the first player, male or female, to win 1,000 singles matches and was ranked first or second in the world from 1975 to 1986, according to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.Dr. Joel Cardenas, a doctor for Ms. Evert, said in the story that an early diagnosis is more likely if a patient is current on doctor visits, understands her family history and has a good relationship with her gynecologist.“Women should know the risk factors, too — endometriosis, history of breast cancer and infertility are among them,” he said. “The average age for ovarian cancer diagnosis is 63.”Genetic testing and counseling are encouraged if a patient has a family history of ovarian cancer, Mr. Cardenas said.Ms. Evert’s younger sister, Jeanne Evert Dubin, also a professional tennis player, died of ovarian cancer in February 2020 at age 62. Ovarian cancer can run in families, and one’s risk is increased if a mother, sister or daughter has had the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.Ms. Dubin was with Ms. Evert as the pair rushed through an airport in October 2017 when the older sister noticed Ms. Dubin was out of breath, according to the ESPN story. Shortly after that, a doctor detected ovarian cancer in Ms. Dubin. It was in a late stage and had spread.“When I go into chemo, she is my inspiration,” Ms. Evert said. “I’ll be thinking of her. And she’ll get me through it.” More

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      Bob Falkenburg, Tennis Hall of Famer Turned Entrepreneur, Dies at 95

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      He won at Wimbledon in 1948 and took some doubles titles before decamping to Brazil and founding a fast-food chain.Bob Falkenburg, the Tennis Hall of Famer who captured the 1948 Wimbledon singles championship in a thrilling fifth-set comeback and also won a pair of Grand Slam men’s doubles titles, then forged a second career as a businessman who introduced fast food outlets to South America, died on Thursday at his home in Santa Ynez, Calif. He was 95.His death was confirmed to The Associated Press by his daughter Claudia.Falkenburg was ranked among the nation’s top 10 tennis players at age 17 and remained in that elite category for the next five years.His signature achievement came at Wimbledon in 1948, when he was down three match points facing John Bromwich of Australia. Relying on powerful backhands and a strong serve, he came back to win his only major singles championship. A year later, Falkenburg won the first two sets facing Bromwich in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, but Bromwich won the last three.Falkenburg teamed with Don McNeill as men’s doubles champions at the U.S. Nationals at Forest Hills in 1944 and with Jack Kramer in the Wimbledon doubles in 1947.The International Tennis Hall of Fame, which inducted Falkenburg in 1974, called him “a thinking man’s player, one who took calculated risks when others might play it safe.”“He was confident that his big booming serve wouldn’t fail him and that his forays to net would lead to winners,” it said.Falkenburg’s brother, Tom, and his sister, Jinx Falkenburg, competed in the U.S. Nationals. But Jinx was best known for her career in show business. She was a model and movie actress, then joined with her husband and manager, Tex McCrary, on the popular radio and early TV breakfast chat program “Tex and Jinx.”Falkenburg entered his last Grand Slam tournament in 1955 after moving to Brazil with his wife, Lourdes Mayrink Veiga Machado, a Brazilian native, whom he married in 1947. He played for Brazil in the 1954 and 1955 Davis Cups.According to the Tennis Hall of Fame, Falkenburg once remembered how on one of his trips from the United States to Brazil he was “distressed that I couldn’t get a decent hamburger or milkshake.”He founded South America’s first fast food and ice cream outlets in 1952 in the Copacabana neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, calling them Bob’s. His mini-chain consisted of about a dozen outlets when the Falkenburgs, having moved back to Southern California in 1970, sold Bob’s to Nestlé’s Libby operation in 1974. Bob’s has had several ownerships since then and has expanded to more than 1,000 outlets in Brazil and beyond South America as well.Robert Falkenburg was born on Jan. 29, 1926, in Manhattan and grew up in Los Angeles. His father, Eugene, an engineer, and his mother, Marguerite (Crooks) Falkenburg, played in amateur tennis events, and Bob began wielding a racket at private clubs when he was 10 years old.He won a junior tennis tournament to the Bel-Air Country Club in 1937 and, while at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, won the U.S. Interscholastic singles title in 1942; he also teamed with his brother to win the doubles title that year. He was later a fine amateur golfer and won the Brazilian amateur championship three times.After serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Falkenburg won the 1946 intercollegiate singles and double championships while at the University of Southern California.In addition to his wife and daughter, he is survived by his son, Robert, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, according to The A.P. Both Tex and Jinx (her birth name was Eugenia; her mother provided her nickname) died in 2003.Describing Falkenburg’s stunning final-set comeback at Wimbledon in 1948, The New York Times reported that “Wimbledon championship fans have seen far better tennis than today’s match, but they’ve rarely witnessed a more exciting one.”As for Falkenburg’s serve that ended the match, 7-5, The Times related how “there was one clear loud pop.”“Bromwich stood flatfooted as the service ace whizzed by him,” The Times wrote. “When a few minutes later, the Duchess of Kent up in the Royal Box presented the coveted trophy to Falkenburg, he looked as surprised as he was pleased.” More

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      Darlene Hard, Strong-Willed Tennis Star Before Pro Era, Dies at 85

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      Hard, who was outspoken and independent minded, was the top-ranked American woman from 1960 to 1963.Darlene Hard, a sturdy and strong-willed Californian with a power game who won 21 Grand Slam tennis championships as one of the last stars of the amateur era, died on Dec. 2 in Los Angeles. She was 85.Anne Marie McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., which inducted Hard in 1973, confirmed the death but did not give a cause.Hard flourished in the late 1950s and early ’60s, when tournament tennis was the domain of amateurs. Along with her, the women’s game featured stars such as Althea Gibson and a young Billie Jean King, Maria Bueno of Brazil and Margaret Court of Australia, all future Hall of Famers.Of the Grand Slam tournaments, Hard won the United States amateur titles in 1960 and ’61 and the French title in 1960. She reached the United States finals in 1958 and 1962 and the Wimbledon finals in 1957 and 1959. She also won 13 Grand Slam championships in women’s doubles with eight different partners, and five in mixed doubles, often paired with Rod Laver.She was ranked No. 1 in the United States from 1960 through 1963, and No. 2 in the world in 1960 and ’61.Gibson played with more power than many women before or since, and Bueno was noted for her grace, but Hard’s aggressive game — big serve, strong overhead and punishing volley — made her a winner. At 5 feet 5½ inches tall and 140 pounds, her main success came on grass courts, where three of the four Grand Slam tournaments were played. (The French Open was, and still is, played on a clay surface).Hard was unusually outspoken at a time when most top players lacked the assertiveness that some display today. She once said of dominating Australian tennis officials: “They treat you not as a player but a puppet. Between tournaments, I was not asked to play in exhibitions — I was ordered to play in them. It was not ‘Miss Hard, would you mind playing?’ It was ‘Miss Hard, you will play.’”Hard belonged to four victorious teams in the Wightman Cup, the annual competition between British and American tennis players. She showed her independent mindedness then, too, earning the irritation of the American team’s captain, Margaret Osborne duPont.DuPont called Hard a “disrupting element” in an official 1962 report. “She insisted on practicing her way instead of complying with the captain’s wishes and those of the other team members,” duPont said.Hard took part in a match that made tennis history on July 6, 1957, losing in the final that made Gibson the first African American woman to win Wimbledon (by a 6-3, 6-2 score). Before the match, as customary, both players curtsied to a young Queen Elizabeth II. Afterward, the queen spoke to them for a few minutes. Then Gibson, following protocol, backed away. An overly enthused Hard, however, in an eyebrow-raising breach of etiquette, turned her back to the queen and skipped toward the locker room.Hard and Althea Gibson after the 1957 Wimbledon final, in which Gibson became the first African-American woman to win the event, defeating Hard. Keystone/Getty ImagesDarlene Ruth Hard was born on Jan. 6, 1936, in Los Angeles and grew up in nearby Montebello, Calif. Her father introduced her to football, basketball, baseball and softball. Her mother, a good amateur player, taught her tennis on public courts.After high school, Hard spent four years on the tennis circuit. Then, she later said, “I decided I didn’t want tennis for a life, so I went to college. I wanted to be in pediatrics. I guess I always wanted to be a doctor.”She went to Pomona College in California and in 1958 won the first intercollegiate tennis championship for women. She graduated in 1961.While at Pomona, Hard had a hitting session with a 13-year-old player who had demonstrated some promise: Billie Jean King.“Darlene Hard had a major influence on my career, as an athlete, teammate and friend,” King was quoted as saying on the Hall of Fame website. The two went on to play doubles together in the first Federation Cup, in 1963, the premier international women’s team tennis competition. King — for whom the cup is now named — recalled how they had overcome two match points to win the final, a highlight of both of their careers, she said.Hard returned to tennis after graduating and worked as a waitress between tournaments. In 1964, with only $400 in the bank, she turned professional and played on a South African tour with Bueno. She soon started giving tennis lessons in the Los Angeles area, leaving behind tournament play.But in 1969, the year after pros were accepted into major tournaments, she returned briefly to international competition, teaming up with Françoise Dürr to play doubles at the U.S. Open. Down 0-6, 0-2 in the final, they rallied to capture the title, 0–6, 6–3, 6–4.Hard went back to teaching tennis and owned two tennis shops. One of her tennis students, the director of student publications at the University of Southern California, offered her a job in the office in 1981. Hard remained there for nearly 40 years.Information on her survivors was not immediately available.In “We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women’s Tennis” (1988), which King wrote with Cynthia Starr, Hard described her dedication to the sport.“I didn’t do it for money,” she said. “I was the last of the amateurs. I won Forest Hills and I got my airfare from New York to Los Angeles. Whoopee.” She continued: “But we still went for our titles. We went for the glory. I was happy. I loved it. I loved tennis.”Frank Litsky, a longtime sportswriter for The Times, died in 2018. Daniel J. Wakin and Jordan Allen contributed reporting. More

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      Jane Brown Grimes, a Rare Female Force in Tennis, Dies at 80

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      She was a top executive at three organizations, including the International Tennis Hall of Fame, where she was later inducted.Jane Brown Grimes, who as one of the rare women executives in tennis in her time modernized the International Tennis Hall of Fame, ran the rule-making body of women’s tennis and was president of the United States Tennis Association, died on Nov. 2 at her home in Manhattan. She was 80.The cause was cancer, her daughter, Serena Larson, said.“Jane did everything behind the scenes,” Chris Evert, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, said in an interview. “She didn’t crave attention and quietly went about her work. Not a lot of women tennis players know what she did, because she was under the radar.”In 1989, Mrs. Brown Grimes, as managing director of the Women’s International Professional Tennis Council, which governed women’s tennis, headed talks that led to a change in title sponsorship of the women’s tour — from Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand marketed to women, to Kraft General Foods. Both were owned by Philip Morris (now the Altria Group).Anti-tobacco activists, as well as some players, had for years demanded that women’s tennis move on from its tobacco sponsorship, the financial backbone of the tour since the early 1970s, to one that promoted a healthier lifestyle.“Jane was a very strategic, intelligent leader, and she was clear that the council had to move away from tobacco,” said Anne Worcester, who was director of worldwide operations for the Virginia Slims series and succeeded Mrs. Brown Grimes as the council leader in 1991.Pam Shriver, who won 132 titles in her career, acknowledged in an interview that “there were no apologies for Virginia Slims being a sponsor.” But, she added, “By the time Jane was in a key position to make a change, she made it happen.”Mrs. Brown Grimes speaking to Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, widow of the tennis star Arthur Ashe, during a match in 2008 at the U.S. Open in Flushing, Queens. The Ashes’ daughter, Camera, is on the left.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg NewsJane Trowbridge Gillespie was born on Jan. 20, 1941, in Freeport, N.Y., on Long Island. Her father, Samuel Hazard Gillespie, was a litigator who served as the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1959 to 1961. Her mother, Ruth (Reed) Gillespie, was the head librarian at the Collegiate School in Manhattan.In her youth, Jane played on her grandparents’ clay tennis court on Long Island and regularly attended the United States National Championships at Forest Hills, Queens — the precursor to the U.S. Open — with her family. She reveled in watching stars like Althea Gibson, Margaret Court, Tony Trabert and Maureen Connolly.“They were my movie stars,” she told The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., in 2009. “They were my idols.”She studied history at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and received a bachelor’s degree in 1962. After working as a fact checker for Life magazine and then for a documentary filmmaker, she joined the Manhattan office of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977.Starting as an event planner, she became a fund-raiser before rising to executive director of the Hall of Fame in 1981, a post she held until 1986. Working mainly from its Manhattan office, she helped raise money to rehabilitate buildings at the Hall, in Newport, R.I., and was the director of tournaments held on its grounds.After leaving to join the women’s tennis council, Mrs. Brown Grimes returned to the Hall as president in 1991 and stayed through 2000, overseeing the acquisition of tennis memorabilia critical to the Hall’s historical mission and continuing the renovations.She was elected to the board of the United States Tennis Association in 2001 and then rose through its ranks to become volunteer chairman and president in 2007. The second woman to hold that position, she served through 2008. During her two-year tenure she particularly championed youth programs and was involved in the U.S.T.A.’s acquisition of the Western & Southern Open.“Jane was one of the few who paved the way for other women to have leadership roles in tennis,” Ms. Worcester said.Mrs. Brown Grimes was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her sons, Jim Schwarz and Ames Brown; her brother, Sam Gillespie; and five grandchildren. Her marriage to Marshall Schwarz ended in divorce, and her marriages to Ames Brown and Charles Grimes ended with their deaths.Ever curious, Mrs. Brown Grimes continued her education well into her later years. She earned an M.B.A. degree from Baruch College in Manhattan in 2012, then used her knowledge of tennis to earn a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge in 2015.Her thesis was about the 1986 Federation Cup tournament in Prague, which marked Martina Navratilova’s return to her homeland for the first time since defecting to the United States in 1975 from what was then Czechoslovakia. Mrs. Brown Grimes had attended the tournament.“When it was over and the U.S. had won, Martina was given a big microphone and started her speech in English, but within about 10 seconds she switched into Czech and the place went nuts,” Mrs. Brown Grimes said in an interview with Steve Flink of Tennis.com this year. “Her mother was sitting in front of me, and down a ways, and she was in tears.”When she died, Mrs. Brown Grimes had nearly finished her dissertation in history at Cambridge — about women’s tennis during the Open era, after tournaments were open to professionals and not just amateurs in 1968. More

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      Budge Patty, Elegant Tennis Champion of the 1950s, Dies at 97

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      Known for his style as much as his forehand volley, he was one of only three Americans to win the French and Wimbledon men’s singles in the same year.Budge Patty, one of only three Americans to win the French and Wimbledon men’s singles tennis championships in the same year and a glamorous figure on the international tennis scene of the 1950s, died on Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was 97.The International Tennis Hall of Fame announced his death, in a hospital, on Friday. He had lived in Europe for more than 70 years and at his death resided in Lausanne.Patty honed his skills as a teenager at the Los Angeles Tennis Club and won the United States junior championship in 1941 and ’42. But he settled in Paris after World War II and played mostly on the Continent and in Britain.He was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1950, when he defeated Jaroslav Drobny, the Czech defector, in five sets to win the French championships, then needed only four sets to defeat Frank Sedgman of Australia in the Wimbledon final. Don Budge, in 1938, and Tony Trabert, in 1955, are the only other American men to have won the singles titles at both of those Grand Slam tournaments in one year. (Trabert died in February at 90.)Known for an outstanding all-around game but especially for a strong forehand volley, Patty was usually in the top 10 in the world rankings between 1947 and 1957 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., in 1977.But he played sporadically in the United States Nationals at Forest Hills, Queens, never advancing beyond the quarterfinals in singles, and he did not compete in the Australian championships.Patty with Frank Sedgman of Australia after defeating him in the men’s finals at Wimbledon in 1950. His “perfect manners and exquisite tennis style made him a Wimbledon idol for 15 years,” one author wrote. Associated PressPatty was almost invariably described as handsome, elegant and a fashionable dresser. In late July 1950, anticipating Patty’s appearance at Forest Hills in a quest for a third major triumph that year, Allison Danzig, the longtime tennis writer of The New York Times, noted how Gussie Moran had created a sensation wearing a short skirt and lace-trimmed underwear at Wimbledon. “Now men’s tennis has its glamour boy,” he wrote.“Budge Patty has had them swooning on the French Riviera these past few years,” Danzig continued, adding, “It wasn’t fair, that anyone so tall and handsome, with that je ne sais quoi which defies translation but compels capitulation, should spend all of his time on the Continent when he had a good home in California.”But any fans at Forest Hills inclined to swoon over Patty were disappointed. He hurt his ankle playing doubles at Newport in mid-August and was unable to compete in the United States Nationals later that summer.John Edward Patty was born on Feb. 11, 1924, in Fort Smith, Ark. His family moved to the Los Angeles area when he was young.According to the Hall of Fame, he got his nickname when a brother, considering him lazy, called him Budge to make the point that he often failed to do just that.After winning two junior championships, Patty entered the Army Air Forces during World War II. He captured the singles championship at a tournament held for Allied servicemen on the French Riviera in September 1945. Three years later, he made Paris his home.He had a French-born grandmother and an Austrian grandfather, and once remarked how “even as a child I knew I’d like Europe.”Budge attended the 2016 French Open in Paris with his wife, Maria, whom he married in 1961.Henri Szwarc/Sipa, via Associated PressPatty teamed with Pauline Betz to win the 1946 mixed doubles in the French championships and then lost to Frank Parker in the 1949 French singles final before capturing it the following year.He played in every French and Wimbledon tournament from 1946 to 1960. “Budge Patty’s perfect manners and exquisite tennis style made him a Wimbledon idol for 15 years,” E. Digby Baltzell wrote in his book “Sporting Gentlemen” (1995).His most memorable match was a marathon duel with Drobny in the third round of the 1953 Wimbledon championships.Lasting nearly four and a half hours over five sets and 93 games, it ended past 9 p.m. in the fading light when Patty succumbed after squandering six match points.“I could hardly see a thing, and I was so tired I barely knew where I was,” he told the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2000, recalling the final moments.At age 33, Patty teamed with 43-year-old Gardnar Mulloy to win the 1957 Wimbledon men’s doubles championship, stunning the Australians Lew Hoad and Neale Fraser, who were in their early 20s.Remaining an amateur for his entire career, Patty won 46 singles championships.He married Maria Marcina Sfezzo, the daughter of a Brazilian engineering magnate, in 1961. She survives him along with two daughters, Christine and Elaine Patty.In an interview with The Times in 1958, Patty, at the time playing four or five months a year while working for a Paris travel agency and enjoying life in Europe, said he did not expect to compete into his 40s.World-class players who did so had never “smoked, drank or gone to bed later than 10 o’clock,” he said. “Me, I’ve preferred to enjoy life.”But 50 years after his double triumph in Grand Slam tournaments, Patty bristled at how he had been depicted in the sports pages.“Tennis players then are like tennis players now,” he told The Telegraph in 2000. “If they see someone wearing a tie, they think he’s strange. It was like, ‘Wow, Budge is wearing a tailored jacket — he must be a secret agent.’ It was ridiculous. I never took any notice.”Alex Traub contributed reporting. More

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      Tony Trabert, a Two-Time No. 1 in Men’s Tennis, Dies at 90

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTony Trabert, a Two-Time No. 1 in Men’s Tennis, Dies at 90Trabert drew on a powerful serve-and-volley game and an outstanding backhand to win five Grand Slam tournament titles in a single year.Tony Trabert playing against Kurt Nielsen at the Wimbledon final in 1955. Wimbledon was one of five Grand Slam tournaments he won that year.Credit…Associated PressFeb. 4, 2021Updated 6:22 p.m. ETTony Trabert, who won five Grand Slam tournament titles in a single year, 1955 — three in singles and two in doubles — making him the world’s No. 1 men’s player for a second time, died on Wednesday at his home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. He was 90. His death was announced by the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., where he was inducted in 1970.A sturdy 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, Trabert drew on a powerful serve-and-volley game and an outstanding backhand in capturing the 1955 men’s singles at the French, Wimbledon and United States championships and teaming with Vic Seixas to take the men’s doubles at the Australian and French events. He had also been ranked No. 1 in 1953.Only Don Budge, who won all four men’s singles majors in 1938, and Rod Laver, who matched that feat in 1962 and 1969, have exceeded Trabert’s 1955 singles accomplishment, a mark that has been matched by several others.Trabert, who won 10 career Grand Slam tournaments overall — five in singles and five in doubles — was described by the tennis journalist and historian Bud Collins as “the all-American boy from Cincinnati with his ginger crew cut, freckles and uncompromisingly aggressive game.”Trabert played on five Davis Cup teams in the 1950s and was later the captain of five American squads.Tennis was largely an amateur affair in Trabert’s heyday. In October 1955, 13 years before the Open era, when pros could compete against amateurs, Jack Kramer signed Trabert to a contract guaranteeing him $75,000 to join his professional tour; over the years the tour also included stars like Pancho Gonzales, Pancho Segura and the Australians Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad and Frank Sedgman.The United States Davis Cup team, of which Trabert was the captain, after winning the cup in 1979. From left: Vitas Gerulaitis, John McEnroe, Trabert, Stan Smith and Bob Lutz.Credit…Associated Press“I never have — or never would — admit to a weakness, because I don’t think I have a particular weakness,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1955.“I think I can play equally well with any shot,” he continued. “It’s not overconfidence or bragging. I know my capabilities and my limitations. I certainly know that because I’m reasonably big, I can’t be as quick as some of the smaller fellows who run around the court and get a lot of balls back defensively. So, quite simply, my game is that I make up in power what I lack in speed.”He went on to be a tennis commentator for CBS for more than 30 years and was president of the Tennis Hall of Fame from 2001 to 2011.Marion Anthony Trabert was born on Aug. 30, 1930, in Cincinnati, to Arch and Bea Trabert. He began hitting tennis balls at a neighborhood park at age 6. His father, a General Electric sales executive, arranged for him to take lessons from local pros when Tony was 10. Two years later, Bill Talbert, a neighbor 12 years his senior and also a future Hall of Famer, began giving him tips.“I could see in him a duplicate of myself at the same age — an intense desire to be a good player and a willingness to spend the long hours to make the grade,” Talbert wrote in “The Fireside Book of Tennis” (1972, edited by Allison Danzig and Peter Schwed).Trabert won the Ohio scholastic tennis singles title three consecutive years while at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, where he also played basketball.He teamed with Talbert to win the doubles title at the French championship in 1950 and captured the 1951 N.C.A.A. singles tennis title while at the University of Cincinnati.Trabert also played guard for the Bearcats’ basketball team, which went to the National Invitation Tournament at Madison Square Garden in March 1951 (at a time when the tournament carried more prestige than it does today) before losing in the first round.Arantxa Sánchez Vicario of Spain in 2007 at her induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, alongside Trabert, who was inducted in 1970.Credit…CJ Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockHe joined the Navy during the Korean War and served aboard an aircraft carrier.Trabert won the men’s singles at the United States Nationals in 1953 and the French singles in 1954 before his three singles victories at Grand Slam events in 1955.After being defeated by Rosewall in the semifinals of the 1955 Australian singles championships, the first of the four annual Grand Slam tournaments, Trabert won the French championship at Roland Garros, on clay, and then won Wimbledon and the United States Nationals at Forest Hills, both on grass. He did not lose a single set at either of those two tournaments.He also won the 1955 U.S. Indoor and Clay Court titles. In addition to winning the doubles in Paris with Talbert, he won four doubles titles in Grand Slam tournaments with Seixas.Trabert played on America’s Davis Cup teams from 1951 to 1955. He made it to the 1952 event while on a Navy furlough.The United States lost to Australia in the 1951 and 1952 finals, but an especially wrenching defeat came at Melbourne in 1953. The U.S. was leading Australia in the final, 2-1, but Hoad and Rosewall, both in their teens, beat Trabert and Seixas. The Americans did defeat Australia at Sydney in the final the next year.While Trabert was captain of the American squad from 1976 to 1980, he guided two cup winners.He is survived by his wife, Vicki; a son, Mike, and a daughter, Brooke Trabert Dabkowski, from his marriage to Shauna Wood, which ended in divorce; three stepchildren, Valerie Mason and James and Robbie Valenti; 14 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.Looking back on his career, Trabert expressed no regrets about turning pro and disqualifying himself from further Grand Slam events before the arrival of the Open era.“When I won Wimbledon as an amateur, I got a 10-pound certificate, which was worth $27 redeemable at Lilly White’s Sporting Goods store in London,” he told The Florida Times-Union in 2014. “Jack Kramer offered me a guarantee of $75,000 against a percentage of the gate to play on his tour.“I made $125,000 to play 101 matches on five continents over 14 months. People say, ‘Yeah, Tony, but bread and milk was five cents.’ I say, ‘Give me Agassi’s $17 million and I’ll figure out the rest.’” Alex Traub contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Dennis Ralston, 78, Doubles Champion in Tennis Hall of Fame, Dies

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDennis Ralston, 78, Doubles Champion in Tennis Hall of Fame, DiesOne of the so-called Handsome Eight, he was among the first players to sign on with the World Championship Tennis tour in the ’60s.Dennis Ralston in the men’s singles finals at Wimbledon in 1966. He lost to Manuel Santana of Spain but found greater success in doubles competitions.Credit…Terry Fincher/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesBy More