Dick Savitt

Richard Savitt (March 4, 1927 – January 6, 2023) was an American tennis player.

Savitt is one of four American men who have won both the Australian and British Championships in one year, following Don Budge (1938) and preceding Jimmy Connors (1974) and Pete Sampras (1994 and 1997).

He and his family moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1944, as his mother had a bad skin condition and needed the warmer weather.

His first love was basketball, though, and when his family moved to Texas, he was an All-State forward and a co-captain of El Paso High School, his El Paso, Texas high school basketball team in 1944.

Despite considering tennis his "second" sport after basketball, he won the Texas University Interscholastic League boys singles championship in 1944–45.

In 1945 Savitt entered the Navy, was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Memphis, Tennessee, and played on a service basketball team.

Beginning in 1946, Savitt attended Cornell University, where he majored in economics, was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity, and was elected a member of the Sphinx Head Society.

However, two injuries, one to his knee, curtailed his basketball career.

Savitt resumed playing tennis.

He became Cornell's tennis team captain, # 1 singles and doubles player.

In 1947 he was ranked # 26 in the U.S., and two years later he was ranked # 17.

In both 1949 and 1950, as a junior and a senior, he won the Eastern Intercollegiate Tournament, and he won the doubles title with Leonard Steiner from 1948 to 1950.

He was 57–2 in singles for his college career, and graduated in June 1950.

In 1950 he won the Eastern Clay Court Championships defeating Don McNeill in the final in four sets and the New York State Championships defeating McNeill again, this time in a long and close five set final.

Still without any coaching, in 1950 Savitt reached the U. S. Tennis Championship semifinals at Forest Hills, losing to Art Larsen.

In 1951, at the age of 24, he won both the Australian and Wimbledon men's singles championships.

Savitt was mostly ranked world No. 2 the same year behind fellow amateur Frank Sedgman, though was declared world No. 1 by The New York Times following his Wimbledon victory.

He retired the following year to concentrate on a career in business.

Savitt ranked in the world's top 10 four times between 1951 and 1957 (# 2 in 1951); and in the U.S. top 10 six times between 1950 and 1959.

Among Savitt's major victories were the 1951 Wimbledon singles championship and the 1951 Australian Open.

In 1951, at the age of 24, Savitt won the Wimbledon Singles Championship.

Along the way he beat Larsen, the No. 1 U.S. player, in straight sets, and Herbert Flam, the No. 2 U.S. player.

He had also won the Australian Open Singles title, winning in straight sets in the 61-minute final against Ken McGregor.

He became the first American since Don Budge, 13 years earlier, to win both Wimbledon and the Australian Open in one season.

Savitt also became the first Jewish male player to win either tournament.

In the Jewish parts of North London, Savitt recalled, "Nobody knew tennis there, but after I won people started picking up rackets".

In addition, he became the first Jewish athlete to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

The significance of a Jewish tennis player succeeding was rooted in the fact that tennis was still at the time primarily a country club sport, and many country clubs often did not allow Jews in as members and did not allow them to use their courts.

This, in turn, kept many Jewish tennis players from obtaining the training they needed to compete at the highest levels.

Savitt was ranked 2nd in the world in 1951.

He was also ranked the No. 1 player on the United States Davis Cup Team.

He also won the 1952, 1958, and 1961 USLTA National Indoor Championships, becoming the first player to win that crown three times, and won the Italian doubles.

He won the Canadian singles and doubles championships in 1952.

That was despite the fact that Savitt did not compete in 1953–55.

He won gold medals in both singles and men's doubles at the 1961 Maccabiah Games in Israel.

Savitt is enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Men's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame, the USTA Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Savitt was born in Bayonne, New Jerseyto a Jewish family.

He taught himself tennis at the age of 14, but never took a tennis lesson in his life.

The self-taught Savitt played tennis well enough, however, to make the finals of the New Jersey Boys Championship and, for two years afterward, the National Boys Tennis Tournament before moving up to the junior ranks.

Nationally he was the 8th-ranked junior tennis player, and the 17th-ranked amateur overall.