Williams, Richard

Richard Norris Williams, II “Dick”
Born: January 29, 1891
Died: June 02, 1968
Hometown: Geneva, Switzerland
Citizenship: United States
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1957

Grand Slam Record
U.S.     Singles     1914, 1916
Singles finalist     1913
Doubles     1925-26
Doubles finalist     1921, 23, 27
Mixed     1912

Wimbledon     Doubles     1920

Tournament Record
Intercollegiate     Singles     1913, 1915
Doubles     1914-15

Davis Cup     Team Member     1913-14, 1921, 1923, 1925-26

Olympic     Gold Medal Mixed     1924

Richard Norris Williams II survived the sinking of the Titanic, and after that harrowing experience, tennis must have seemed easy, for he became one of the outstanding players of his time, ever a risk-taking shotmaker. Born of American parents in Geneva, Switzerland, January 29, 1891, he left for the United States in 1912 aboard the S.S Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank.

At the insistence of his father, who went down with the ship, Dick dived from the deck at the last possible moment, swam to a half-submerged lifeboat and clung there, in near-freezing water, for six hours. When rescued, a ship’s doctor advised amputation of the frozen-stiff, seemingly useless legs, common treatment at the time. Fortunately, Williams refused, and only months later was in the quarters of the U.S. Championships, losing in four to the champ, Maurice McLoughlin.

He lived a long life, until age 77, and for that the tennis world was always grateful.

Williams, a right-hander, had learned to play in Switzerland, using the continental grip and hitting his groundstrokes with underspin. He developed his game further as a Harvard University undergraduate, winning the Intercollegiate championship in 1913 and 1915.

The next year, he was runner-up at Newport, but in 1914 he won, ousting McLoughlin, 6-3, 86l lO-8, in a stirring final before a large crowd on the new championship court at the Casino. Throughout the three sets Williams maintained a terrific pace and marvelous control, averting the loss of the final set several times with bursts of speed and master strokes that thwarted even so aggressive and courageous a foe as the Comet.

In 1916 he won the U.S. title again, this time over Little Bill Johnston, and attained the No. 1 ranking. Beginning in 1913, he played on five winning Davis Cup teams. After wartime combat service in France with the Army, a decorated hero (a French Croix de Guerre among his medals), Dick captained six Cup winners, 1921-26, plus the team of 1934. He was a victorious doubles player four of those Cup-keeping years, a volleyer whose doubles titles were numerous, including Wimbledon in 1920 with Chuck Garland. He laughed about his 1924 Olympic gold medal in mixed alongside Hazel Wightman: “I had a sprained ankle and suggested to her that we default. Not on your life with her. She told me to stay at the net, and she’d do the running. It worked [6-2, 6-3, over compatriots Marion Jessup and Vinnie Richards] even though I was 34 and she 37.” He continued playing the U.S. Championships (21 in all, the fifth-highest total) through 1935 when he won a round, at 44, and won 65 of 84 matches, tied for fifth with John McEnroe.

Williams had a daring style of play, taking every possible ball (when not in volleying position) on the rise with hair-trigger timing. Always he hit boldly, sharply for the winner, and that included serving for the winner on both the first and second ball. He did not know what it was to temporize.

On occasion, his errors caused by his gutsy tactics might bring defeat by opponents of inferior ability. But it was the commonly held opinion that Williams, on his best days, when he had the feel and touch and his breathtaking strokes were flashing on the lines, was unbeatable against any and all, and once he won a set over Bill Tilden in five minutes.

He made the World Top Ten in 1914, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923 and 1925, was No. 4 in 1923, No. 5 in 1925, and was in the U.S. Top Ten 12 times between 1912 and 1925, No. 1 in 1916. In 1957 he was elevated to the Hall of Fame. He died June 2, 1968, in Bryn Mawr, PA.

Anthony Frederick Wilding “Tony”
Born: October 31, 1883
Died: May 09, 1915
Hometown: Christchurch, New Zealand
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1978

Grand Slam Record
Australian     Singles     1906, 09
Doubles     1906
Doubles finalist     1908, 09

Wimbledon     Singles     1910-13
Singles finalist     1914
Doubles     1907-08, 10, 14
Doubles finalist     1911
Mixed finalist     1914

Tournament Record
Davis Cup     Team Member     1905-09, 1914

The British idolized Tony Wilding. He was a superb figure of a man, his sportsmanship was exemplary, and, besides, he learned his tennis at Cambridge University.

Anthony Frederick Wilding, born October 31, 1883, in Christchurch, New Zealand, stood with Norman Brookes as two of the foremost players in tennis for nearly a decade. On his sixth try, 1910, Tony won Wimbledon, unseating Arthur Gore, 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, in the Challenge Round, and kept the title through 1913. In the 1913 Challenge Round, with an 8-6, 6-3, 10-8 beating of Maurice McLoughlin, the formidable California Comet, Wilding was particularly impressive. “He was in prime physical condition,” wrote distinguished British tennis authority A. Wallis Myers. “All his best fighting instincts were aroused, his tactics were as sound as his strokes and he won a great victory, the greatest of his career, in three sets.”

Wilding, a 6-foot-2, 185-pound right-hander, lost his title to Brookes in 1914 and joined with the Australian “Wizard” to win the Davis Cup back from the United States that very year. Wilding’s triumph over Dick Williams of the U.S. on the first day of the Cup was a shock. Williams was one of the most daring and brilliant shotmakers in history, but Wilding, playing almost unerringly, won quickly, 7-5, 6-2, 6-3.

Wilding played the classic game in vogue at the time. His drives were the strength of his attack and his defense was outstanding. He could hit with immense pace and overspin, but when prudence and judgment dictated security of stroke rather than speed, as against a player of Williams’ daring, Wilding could temper his drives and play faultlessly from the baseline.

Wilding made his debut on the Australasian Davis Cup team at the age of 21 in 1905. After winning the second Australian Championship in 1906 over a fellow New Zealander, lefty Francis Fisher, 6-0, 6-4, 6-4, his Antipodean partnership with Brookes took off. They stripped the Davis Cup from Britain, 3-2, at Wimbledon in 1907, his win over Roper Barrett sandwiched between Brookes’ two singles wins. They were hard pressed to keep the trophy the next year at Melbourne, turning back the U.S., 3-2, as Wilding won the decisive point over Fred Alexander, 6-3, 6-4, 6-1. Then they blanked the U.S., 5-0, in 1909. Tony was absent as Australia lost the 1911-12 showdowns. His reappearance for the 1914 invasion of the U.S. marked his farewell to tennis. The stunning leadoff victory over Dick Williams, plus a hand in the winning doubles, helped accomplish the 3-2 triumph that practically coincided with the outbreak of World War I.

Following their victory at Forest Hills, he and Brookes went to war. Wilding never came back. At the age of 31, on May 9, 1915, he was killed in action at Neuve Chapelle, France. He had been No. 3 in the world ranking in 1914, and was named to the Hall of Fame in 1978.

Mats Wilander
Born: August 22, 1964
Hometown: Vaxjo, Sweden
Citizenship: Sweden
Handed: Right
Inducted: 2002

Grand Slam Record
Australian Open     Singles winner     1983 (Dec.), 1984 (Dec.), 1988
Singles finalist     1985 (Dec.)
Doubles finalist     1984 (Dec.)

French Open     Singles winner     1982,1985,1988
Singles finalist     1983,1987

Wimbledon     Doubles winner     1986

US Open     Singles winner     1988
Singles finalist     1987
Doubles finalist     1985

Tournament Record
Davis Cup     Team Member     1981-1990, 1995
Winning Team     1984,1985,1987

The Masters     Singles winner     1983,1988
Singles finalist     1987
Doubles finalist     1985

* In 1982 he was the youngest player to win the French Open (17 years, 9 months) He held this title for seven years until Michael Chang (17 years, 3 months) won in 1989
* He was the youngest man to win a Grand Slam singles title (French Open, 1982) until Boris Becker won Wimbledon in 1985 at 17 years, 7 months
* In 1988, Wilander ended Lendl’s No.1 reign (Lendl was #1 for 157 consecutive weeks)
* In 1988, he held three of the four Grand Slam Titles
* He was the only man to hold four Grand Slam titles before the age of 21
* In 1987, Wilander played in the longest U.S. Open Final (4 hr. 47 min) against Ivan Lendl

Highest Ranking
Date of Last Ranking & Highest Rank Obtained
Highest Singles Ranking        No. 1 (Sept. 12, 1988)

* Finished in the ATP Tour Top Ten seven times (1982-1988)

Other
Special Honors and Awards Received:
The William M. Johnston Award     1985

ATP Tour Player of the Year Award     1988

Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award     1985

Born in Vaxjo, Sweden, Mats Wilander captured a remarkable 8 titles in Grand Slam events (7 in singles) and won 33 career singles titles. In 1988, Wilander was the most dominant player on the men’s professional tennis tour. He captured 3 of the 4 Grand Slam singles championships (Australian, French and US Opens) and became the No. 1 ranked player in the world for the year.

At 17 years, 9 months, Wilander upset Guillermo Vilas to win the 1982 French Open and became the youngest man to win a Grand Slam singles title. This record was broken by Boris Becker (17 years, 7 months) at Wimbledon in 1985 and by Michael Chang (17 years, 3 months) in 1989 at the French Open.

Wilander was a member of Sweden’s Davis Cup team (1981-’90, ’95) and was an integral member of Sweden’s 3 winning Cup teams (1984, ’85 and ’87). He compiled a 36-14 record in singles and a 7-2 record in doubles for Sweden. However, Wilander’s most memorable Davis Cup match came in defeat. In 1982 in the tie versus the United States, Wilander was defeated in a five set, 6 hour and 32 minute marathon, by John McEnroe.

Wilander’s lone doubles title in a Grand Slam event came in 1986 at Wimbledon with countryman Joakim Nystrom.

Wilander is the fifth former world No. 1 to play on the Champions Senior Tour. Since joining the Champions Tour in 1998, Wilander has won 3 Champion Tour titles and has been a Champions Tour finalist 8 times. When not playing on the Champions Senior Tour, Wilander can be seen on the ATP tour coaching Marat Safin, a former No. 1 ranked player and winner of the 2000 US Open singles championship.

Malcolm Douglass Whitman “Mal”
Born: March 15, 1877
Died: December 28, 1932
Hometown: New York, New York, United States
Citizenship: United States
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1955

Grand Slam Record
U.S.     Singles     1898-00

Tournament Record
Intercollegiate     Singles     1896
Doubles     1897-98

Davis Cup     Team Member     1900, 1902

Contributions
Author     Tennis Origins and Mysteries

One of the Harvard Three, the original U.S. Davis Cup team, Malcolm Douglass Whitman led off in the initial clash–U.S. vs. British Isles–in 1900 by beating Arthur Gore, 6-1, 6-3, 6-2. Classmate Dwight Davis, the Cup donor, won a singles and joined Holcombe Ward for the doubles clincher for the 3-0 triumph at Boston’s Longwood Cricket Club.

A quarterfinalist in the 1896 and 1897 U.S. Championships, Whitman came through at Newport in 1898 with the first of his three straight championships. In the all-comers title match he beat Davis, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, and was crowned champion because 1897 victor Robert Wrenn, off to the Spanish-American War, didn’t defend in the challenge round.

After another successful defense in 1899, Whitman had to first win a fight with his father, who wanted him to concentrate on law school (Harvard) and put away his racket. The son won, and that enabled him to put down challenger Bill Larned, 6-4, 1-6, 6-2, 6-2, for his third crown. Whitman had a weirdly bounding reverse twist serve (a stroke no longer seen) and was a sharp volleyer.

He didn’t defend in 1901 but returned for a 1902 cameo “to represent my country,” helping turn back the British invaders once more, and he reached the U.S. all-comers final, only to be stung by Reggie Doherty, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-0.

In the Davis Cup showdown he won both his matches (over Joshua Pim, 6-1, 6-1, 1-6, 6-0, and over Reggie Doherty, 6-1, 7-5, 6-4) and the U.S. kept the Cup, 3-2.

Whitman, a handsome 6-foot-2 right-hander, was through, after posting an unbeaten Cup record and a 19-3 U.S. match record at Newport. He was in the U.S. Top Ten six times from 1896, No. 1 1898, 1899, 1900, and No. 2 in 1902. Ever absorbed by the game’s history, he wrote “Tennis Origins and Mysteries”, published in 1931. Born March 15, 1877, in New York, he committed suicide there December 28, 1932. He was named to the Hall of Fame in 1955.

Watson Washburn “Watty”
Born: June 13, 1894
Died: December 02, 1973
Hometown: New York, New York, United States
Citizenship: United States
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1965

Grand Slam Record
U.S.     Doubles finalist     1921, 23

Wimbledon     Doubles finalist     1924

Tournament Record
Intercollegiate     Doubles     1913

Davis Cup     Team Member     1921

Contributions
U.S.T.A.     Committeeman

A New Yorker and a Harvard man, Watson McLean Washburn had a hand early on in the U.S. record run of seven Davis Cups that began in 1920. Watty played in the first defense, at Forest Hills in 1921, where he and Dick Williams won the Cup-clinching match over Japan’s Zenzo Shimidzu and Ichiya Kumagae, 6-2, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5.

A 6-foot right-hander who won the U.S. Intercollegiate doubles while at Harvard in 1913, Washburn served in the U.S. Army in World War I. He ranked seven times in the U.S. Top Ten between 1914 and 1922, No. 5 in 1921, and continued to play extremely well into his 50s, winning the U.S. 45s singles in 1940 and the doubles in that category thrice, 1940, 1942, 1944.

He was born June 13, 1894, in New York, was a committeeman for the USTA, and died in New York, December 2, 1973. He was inducted the Hall of Fame in 1965.

Holcombe Ward
Born: November 23, 1878
Died: January 23, 1967
Hometown: New York, New York, United States
Citizenship: United States
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1965

Grand Slam Record
U.S.     Singles     1904
Singles finalist     1905
Doubles     1899-01, 1904-06
Doubles finalist     1898, 1903

Wimbledon     Doubles finalist     1901

Tournament Record
Intercollegiate     Doubles     1899

Davis Cup     Team Member     1900, 1902, 1905-06

Contributions
U.S.T.A.     President     1937-1947

One of the Harvard Three forming the first Davis Cup team, Holcombe Ward is also credited with originating the American twist serve which bedeviled the British invaders as the Cup was put into play in 1900. He accompanied donor Dwight Davis–his partner in two subsequent doubles championships–to the clinching doubles win in the 3-0 victory over the British Isles.

The 5-foot-9, 135 pound right-hander played for the Cup-winners again in 1902, and the losers, to the Brits in 1905 and 1906. At Harvard, Ward partnered with Davis to the intercollegiate doubles title in 1899, and broke through as U.S. singles champ in 1904 over Bill Clothier, 10-8, 6-4, 9-7. That year he was ranked No. 1, the acme of his seven years in his country’s Top Ten. In 1922 Ward and Davis reunited to win the U.S. Seniors 45s doubles title. He served as president of the USTA between 1937 and 1947.

A New Yorker, he was born there November 23, 1878, and died January 23, 1967, in Red Bank, NJ. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1956.

Marie Wagner
Born: February 02, 1883
Died: March 30, 1975
Hometown: Freeport, New York, United States
Citizenship: United States
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1969

Grand Slam Record
U.S.     Singles finalist     1914

Tournament Record
Indoor     Singles     1908-09, 1911, 1913-14, 1917
Doubles     1910, 1913, 1916-17

Queen of the boards, Marie Wagner, a New Yorker, was the scourge of Manhattan’s Seventh Regiment Armory where she won the U.S. Indoor singles a record six times (1908, 1913, 1914, 1917), and the doubles four times. She was also singles finalist in 1915 to Molla Mallory. Her best outdoor showing was the 1914 U.S. finalist to Mary K. Browne, losing, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1.

She ranked No. 6 in 1913 when the U.S. Top Ten was established, and was in that select group every year through 1920–No. 3 in 1914– well as 1922 when she ranked No. 9 at age 39. A right-hander, she was born February 2, 1883, in Freeport, NY, and died April 1, 1975. She entered the Hall of Fame in 1969.

Sarah Virginia Wade “Ginny”
Born: July 10, 1945
Hometown: Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1989

Grand Slam Record
Australian     Singles     1972
Doubles     1973

Wimbledon     Singles     1977
Doubles finalist     1970

U.S.     Singles     1968 (open)
Singles finalist     1969 (amateur)
Doubles     1969, 73, 75
Doubles finalist     1968 (amateur), 69 (open), 70, 72, 76

French     Doubles     1973
Doubles finalist     1979

Tournament Record
Italian     Singles     1971
Doubles     1968, 71, 73, 83
Doubles finalist     1970
Mixed finalist     1968

Fed Cup           1967-83

Wightman Cup           1965-85

If ever a player achieved high drama by winning Wimbledon, it was “Our Ginny,” as her compatriots throughout the United Kingdom called her. It was 1977, Sarah Virginia Wade’s 17th try, and the year of the magnificent Wimbledon Centenary. Moreover, Queen Elizabeth appeared for the first time in a quarter-century to present the women’s prize. Ginny had set the stage by deposing 1976 champ Chris Evert in the semis, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.

Attacking incessantly, heedless of whatever mistakes she made, Wade finished strongly to beat Betty Stove for the title, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, nine days short of her 32nd birthday. An extraordinary jubilant Centre Court crowd of more than 14,000, unaccustomed to homegrown success, became a chorus in singing “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow!” A tennis queen was saluted by her Queen.

Dark-haired Wade was slender (5-foot-8) and nimble, of elegant bearing. She had the longest and, considering the highly competitive age in which she sparkled, the most fruitful career of any Englishwoman. Her career spanned the amateur and open eras, and in 1968 she scored two notable firsts. As an amateur she won the inaugural open, the British Hard Court at Bournemouth, turning down the $720 first prize, and five months later. as a pro, she captured the initial U.S. Open (and $6,000), upending the favored defender and Wimbledon champ, Billie Jean King, 6-4, 6-2.

As a pro she won 55 singles titles, seventh among the all-time leaders, and amassed $1,542,278 in career prize money. She won the Australian title in 1972, only the third Brit to do so, following Dorothy Round (1935) and Angela Mortimer (1958). With her severely sliced backhand approach and splendid volleying, right-handed Ginny was a natural on grass. But she showed her clay mettle in winning the Italian in 1971. She added doubles majors at the Australian, French and U.S., all with Margaret Court.

She continued to play Wimbledon through 1987–a record 26 years in all–getting as far as a semifinal defeat by Evert, 8-6, 6-2, in her 1978 defense, and the quarters in 1979 and 1983, when ranked No. 63. She is fifth among all players in matches played there (212): 64-23 in singles, 53-24 in doubles, 24-24 in mixed. She entered the World Top Ten in 1967 and was there 13 straight years, No. 2 in 1968. She set records for participation in Federation Cup (18 years) and ties (57). She has played (99) and won (66) the most matches. She is tied for third in most singles won (36), and, for Britain, years of Wightman Cup play (21 years) and total wins (12-23 in singles, 7-13 in doubles).

She was born July 10, 1945 in Bournemouth, England, learned to play tennis in South Africa, where she lived, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1989.

Gottfried von Cramm, Baron “The Baron”
Born: July 07, 1909
Died: November 08, 1976
Hometown: Nettlingen Hanover, Germany
Citizenship: Germany
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1977

Grand Slam Record
U.S.     Singles finalist     1937
Doubles     1937

French     Singles     1934, 36</ td>
Singles finalist     1935
Doubles     1937

Wimbledon     Singles finalist     1935-37
Mixed     1933

Australian     Doubles finalist     1938

Tournament Record
Davis Cup     Team Member     1932-37, 1951-53

If any player was the prince charming of tennis, he was Gottfried von Cramm, a baron of the German nobility, six feet tall, with blond hair, green eyes, and a magnetism that, in the words of Don Budge, “made him dominate any scene he was part of.”

The most accomplished tennis player Germany had known, von Cramm must be one of the finest players never to have won the Wimbledon Championship, for which he was runner-up three years in a row–to Fred Perry in 1935 and 1936, and to Budge in 1937.

Von Cramm, who was known as The Baron, was also runner-up to Budge for the U.S. Championship in 1937 and runner-up yet again to Budge in what has been termed the greatest Davis Cup match ever played, the fifth and deciding match in the 1937 semifinal between the United States and Germany. Budge came from 1-4 and had match point five times before he hit the final shot, racing across the court beyond the alley, and he lay sprawled on the ground as the umpire declared the United States to be winner. The score of the match: 6-8, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 8-6.

Said The Baron at the end, when he stood at the net waiting for Budge to pick himself up from the ground: “Don, this was absolutely the finest match I have ever played in my life. I’m very happy I could have played it against you, whom I like so much. Congratulations.” The next moment, their arms were around each other.

Von Cramm, a right-hander, born July 7, 1909, at Nettlingen, Hanover, Germany, was noted on the court for his endurance and tenacity. In recalling their thrilling Cup match, Budge related how he put four successive first serves in play his very best, and all four came back as winners for von Cramm.

Few have endured as he did in taking the first of his two French titles in 1934. Five set matches were the rule as he fought through four of them (of six), and snatched a match point away from Jack Crawford in the final, 6-4, 7-9, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3. Two years later another five-setter was his ticket to victory over the World No. 1 Fred Perry, ending with an astounding shutout, 6-0, 2-6, 6-2, 2-6, 6-0. But Perry beat him in 1935 and 1936, and Budge bested him in 1937 as von Cramm lost three straight Wimbledon finals, a record for frustration he shares with Herbert Lawford (1884-86) and Fred Stolle (1963-65). He won six German titles, 1932-35, and remarkably, after the war, in 1948 and 1949, the last at age 40.

But that wasn’t the last that aficionados heard of The Baron. He had always loved representing the Fatherland in Davis Cup, was saddened by the Nazi takeover, and elated at the welcoming back of a democratic Germany to the tennis community in 1951. He played three more years for the Cup, leading Germany in 1951 to four wins and the final of the European zone with a 9-1 singles record, beating men half his age such as Dane Kurt Nielsen, soon to be a Wimbledon runner-up. In 1953, at 44, he returned to Paris to say adieu in defeat by France, registering the last of his 58 Cup singles wins over Paul Remy, 30. He was a Cup centurion, one of the select 14 who played more than 100 matches (111). His most productive year was 1935: 11-1 in singles, 4-1 in doubles. In 1937, the year he came so close to winning the Cup, he was 7-2 in singles, 4-1 in doubles.

Popular everywhere he went, von Cramm delighted Americans in 1937 as a U.S. champ and runner-up, finalist to Budge at Forest Hills and victor with Henner Henkel over Budge and Gene Mako in Boston, and at the Australian in 1938 where the two Germans were doubles runners-up to John Bromwich and Adrian Quist.

Von Cramm, at the height of his career when Hitler was preparing for Germany to launch World War II, declined to speak for Nazism in his tennis travels and was imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1938. After the war, during which he was a hero on the Russian front, he had a successful business career and was an administrator in tennis, serving as president of Lawn Tennis Club Rot-Weiss in Berlin. The Baron died in an automobile crash near Cairo, Egypt, November 8, 1976, and a year later was enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Henry Ellsworth Vines, Jr. “Elly”
Born: September 28, 1911
Died: March 17, 1994
Hometown: Los Angeles, California, United States
Citizenship: United States
Handed: Right
Inducted: 1962

Grand Slam Record
Wimbledon     Singles     1932
Singles finalist     1933

U.S.     Singles     1931-32
Doubles     1932
Mixed     1933
Mixed finalist     1932

Australian     Doubles     1933

Tournament Record
Davis Cup     Team Member     1932-33

One night in 1930, an 18-year-old lad sat in a rocking chair on the porch of the Peninsula Inn in Seabright, NJ, looking out to sea and thinking that his tennis dreams were shattered. “I guess I’m just a flash in the pan like they say,” said Henry Ellsworth Vines, Jr.

Weeks earlier they had been calling him another California Comet. He had come out of the West, a lanky youth who had the kick of a mule in his cannonball service and who terrorized the Eastern grass court circuit.

Vines, a right-hander, born September 29, 1911, in Los Angeles, ambled along mournfully like slow molasses when not in hot pursuit of a tennis ball. On the court he was devastating, wherefore came the comparisons to a Maurice McLoughlin, the original California Comet.

Vines, the Southern California champ, a cornstalk at 6-foot-2, 143 pounds, had easily disposed of two of the better Americans, Frank Hunter and Frank Shields, at Seabright, but now he had lost the final to Sidney Wood, unable to cope with Wood’s seemingly innocuous game of moderate strokes, and some were saying the new Comet had burned out already. It looked more that way at Forest Hills where George Lytleton Rogers beat him in the third round from two sets down. But Elly didn’t settle for that. He went home, won the Pacific Southwest, practiced all winter and spring against slow-ball strategy and came back East in 1931 to win the U.S. title over George Lott, 7-9, 6-3, 9-7, 7-5, after trailing 5-3 in the third and 5-2 in the fourth.

His 1932 was a splendid campaign decorated with the Wimbledon title and another U.S. in 59 minutes over Henri Cochet, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, after a semifinal recovery two points from defeat by the offspeed stuff of Cliff Sutter. As a Davis Cup rookie he was 9-1, driving the U.S. to the Challenge Round, a 3-2 loss to France. He won four of eight tournaments, 46-5 in matches, and was No. 1 in the world.

Vines played amateur tennis on the grass circuit only four years, 1930-33, making the World Top Ten the last three years, and the U.S. Top Ten in 1930-32, No. 1 the last two years. But in those four years he established at Forest Hills and Wimbledon that he had one of the best serves, if not the very fastest serve ever turned loose, with almost no spin. He also had as fast and as risky a forehand as ever seen, a murderous overhead, and a skill in the volleying position to compare with the best.

Moreover, his disposition and temperament were foolproof. Where others might explode in protest against a line call, Vines would slowly turn his head and grin under his white cap at the linesman.

He was a gambler on the court. He hit his forehand flat, with all his whizzing might, and closer to the net and the lines than anyone dared. At his best he was equal to beating any player, but his margin of safety was so thin that on days when he did not have the feel and touch, his errors could be ruinous.

Wimbledon crowds marveled at the devastating fury of his attack in beating Bunny Austin, 6-4, 6-2, 6-0 in the 1932 Wimbledon final, which ended with his 30th service ace. The ball catapulted by Austin so fast that the Briton said afterward he did not know whether it went by him to the left or to the right. Don Budge marvels, “Thirty aces in 12 serving games! Considering it was against one of the finest players of the era, and a Wimbledon final, it could be the greatest serving demonstration ever.”

But 1933 was a comedown. In one of the magnificent Wimbledon finals Elly lost his title to Jack Crawford, failing to cash numerous second-set break points, 4-6, 11-9, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. Both Austin and Fred Perry beat him as the U.S. lost the Davis Cup semifinal in Paris, a prelude to Britain seizing the Cup from France, and so did the mite, Bitsy Grant, in the fourth round at Forest Hills. Disgusted, Vines could not wait to cut the gut out of his rackets and leave for home, his tennis career as an amateur soon at an end.

He signed a professional contract to go on tour with Bill Tilden and lost their opening match, 8-6, 6-3, 6-2, before 16,200 fans at Madison Square Garden. But Vines ultimately beat the aging Tilden, 47 matches to 26. A match in the Garden between Vines and Perry drew 17,630. He was considered the No. 1 pro through 1937, winning the Wembley World Pro title over Tilden in 1935, Hans Nusslein in 1936 and 1937.

Near the end of the decade, Vines’ interest in tennis waned. He turned to golf and became the best golfer who was ever a top tennis player. For years he prospered as a teaching pro, and he was good enough to reach the semifinals of the 1951 Professional Golf Association Championship.

He was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1962, and died March 17, 1994. In 1977 he attended the Wimbledon Centenary as one of the former champions receiving commemorative medals. He had turned out to be much, much more than a flash in the pan.