player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameWilliam Augustus (Bill)
LastnameLarned
GenderMale
CountryUnited States of America
Date of birth1872-12-30
Place of birthSummit, New Jersey, United States of America
Date of death1926-12-16
Place of deathNew York, United States of America

About

Adapted from Wikipedia, at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Larned

William Larned was born and raised in Summit, New Jersey on the estate of his father, William Zebedee Larned, a wealthy lawyer and a major landowner in Summit. Stoneover, the manor house in which he grew up, today houses the administrative and faculty offices of the Oak Knoll School. Larned Road in Summit honours both father and son; Brayton School in Summit was named in honour of his younger brother Brayton, who died at age 15.

Larned came from a family that could trace its American roots to shortly after the arrival of the Mayflower. In 1890 he came to Cornell University to study mechanical engineering. He first gained fame in his junior year, when he became the first (and to this day, the only) Cornellian to win the intercollegiate tennis championship.

An all-around athlete, Larned captained the St. Nicholas Hockey Club in 1896-97 and was also a horseman, golfer, and rifle shot. He invented the steel-framed racquet in 1922 and founded a company to manufacture it.

Like Richard Sears before him and Bill Tilden after him, Larned won the men’s singles title at the U.S. Championships seven times: in 1902 and 1903, and from 1907 to 1911. (The challenge round was abolished at this tournament in 1912, meaning the champion has played through every year since then.)

Larned was a member of the U.S. Davis Cup Team in 1902, 1903, 1905, 1908, 1909, 1911 and 1912. He was ranked the top American singles player several times. He took part in the Wimbledon tournament twice, in 1896 and 1905, but could not match his success at home, losing in the quarter-finals both times.

Larned also won the men’s singles title at a number of other tournaments multiple times, including the Longwood Challenge Bowl eleven times (1894-97, 1901, 1903-09), the Middle States Championships six times (1894-95, 1897, 1899, 1906-07), and the Southampton Invitational three times (1902, 1904, 1906).

In 1898, Larned had served in the Spanish-American War as one of Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. While serving in the war, Larned caught rheumatism in Cuba; rheumatoid arthritis caused his health to deteriorate, forcing him to retire from tennis after losing the Davis Cup challenge round in early 1912.

Partially paralyzed by spinal meningitis, he was unable to participate in any of the activities he loved most and consequently became depressed. On the evening of December 15, 1926, inside the private chambers of the exclusive Knickerbocker Club in Manhattan, the 53-year-old Larned committed suicide by shooting himself.

In their book “On Lawn Tennis” (1903), multiple Wimbledon champions Reginald and Laurence Doherty described Larned’s playing style as follows:

“Larned, when on his game, is very fine indeed and very brilliant. His is a good style and pleasant to watch. Throughout he hits hard, and goes for his stroke. With very little effort Larned gets great pace on the ball. His forehand is distinctly stronger than his backhand, but he puts top on both, hitting nearly at the height of the bound.

“Among his strongest points are his forehand volley, which is very hard indeed, and his service, which is a capital one of the ordinary straight kind, and which he, as a rule, follows up to the net. He is quick reaching the net after a good-length drive, and he can drive the ball while he is on the run. He is good at the volley but erratic at times in his return of service. He has really only one fault, namely, that he varies at times; he has his ‘off’ days.”

William Larned was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1956.

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