William Larned - Biography

Biography

Larned was born and raised in Summit, New Jersey on the estate of his father, William Zebedee Larned. Larned Road in Summit honors both father and son. He came from a family that could trace its American roots to shortly after the arrival of the Mayflower. He was the eldest child of a wealthy lawyer and his wife. 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 ice hockey team in 1896-97 and was also a fine horseman, golfer, and rifle shot. He invented the steel-framed racquet in 1922 and founded a company to manufacture it.

As one of the "Big Three of the U.S. men's championship", Larned won the title seven times, as did Richard Sears before him and Bill Tilden after. Larned was a member of the U.S. Davis Cup Team in 1902-03, 1905, 1908–09 and 1911–12 and won the Davis Cup on no fewer than five occasions. Larned achieved a career-high singles ranking of US No. 1. He twice participated in the Wimbledon Championships, in 1896 and 1905, but could not match his success at home, losing on both occasions in the quarterfinals.

He was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1956.

Larned in 1898 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 later deteriorated his health forcing him to retire from tennis after winning the Davis Cup in 1911. Partially paralyzed by spinal meningitis, he was unable to do any of the activities he loved most, and became depressed. On the evening of December 15, 1926, inside the private chambers of the exclusive Knickerbocker Club in Manhattan, the 53-year-old man William Augustus Larned raised a .45 caliber pistol to his head, and committed suicide.