Don Budge won ten majors, of which six were Grand Slam events and four Pro Slams, the latter achieved on three different surfaces.
42 Facts About Don Budge
2.
Don Budge is considered to have one of the best backhands in the history of tennis, with most observers rating it better than that of later player Ken Rosewall.
3.
Don Budge was the world Number 1 amateur in 1937 and 1938 and world Number 1 professional in 1939,1940 and 1942.
4.
Don Budge was red-headed, tall and slim, and his height would eventually help what is still considered one of the most powerful serves of all time.
5.
Don Budge studied at the University of California, Berkeley in late 1933 but left to play tennis with the US Davis Cup auxiliary team.
6.
Don Budge beat von Cramm in the US Championships final which "was a strange see-saw affair in which Don Budge twice lapsed from his normally brilliant genius guided game".
7.
Don Budge gained the most fame for his match that year against von Cramm in the Davis Cup inter-zone finals against Germany.
8.
Don Budge's victory allowed the US team to advance and to then win the Davis Cup for the first time in 12 years.
9.
In 1938, Budge dominated amateur tennis defeating John Bromwich in the Australian final, Roderick Menzel in the French final, Henry "Bunny" Austin at Wimbledon, where he never lost a set, and Gene Mako in the US Championships final, to become the first person ever to win the Grand Slam in tennis.
10.
Don Budge is the youngest man in history to complete the "Career Grand Slam" and "Full Grand Slam".
11.
Don Budge completed that on June 11,1938, in winning the French singles, two days before his 23rd birthday.
12.
Don Budge turned professional in October 1938 after winning the Grand Slam, and thereafter played mostly head-to-head matches.
13.
Don Budge finished in first place on the European tour in the summer that featured Vines, Tilden and Stoefen.
14.
Don Budge was ranked World No 1 pro by Bowers, Didier Poulain of L'Auto and Alfred Chave, The Telegraph.
15.
On July 29,1940, Don Budge played an exhibition match in front of 2,000 people at the Cosmopolitan Club in Harlem, New York City against the American Tennis Association's top player Jimmie McDaniel.
16.
Don Budge lost his opening match in the US Pro championships to John Faunce.
17.
Don Budge didn't have his court legs today and naturally that was my cue to make him run and.
18.
In 1942, Don Budge won his last major tour over Bobby Riggs, Frank Kovacs, Perry and Les Stoefen.
19.
Don Budge was ranked World No 1 pro by Bowers and by the USPLTA.
20.
In 1942, Don Budge joined the United States Army Air Forces to serve in World War II.
21.
Don Budge confided in Parker his disbelief at losing two matches in a row to Riggs.
22.
In 1946, Don Budge lost narrowly to Riggs in their US tour, 24 matches to 22.
23.
Bobby played to Don Budge's shoulder, lobbed him to death, won the first twelve matches, thirteen out of the first fourteen, and then hung on to beat Don Budge, twenty-four matches to twenty-two.
24.
At the age of thirty, Don Budge was very nearly a has-been.
25.
In 1947 Don Budge beat Riggs in two European tours, one early in the year and one in the summer.
26.
Don Budge reached two more US Pro finals, losing in 1949 at Forest Hills to Riggs and in 1953 in Cleveland to Pancho Gonzales.
27.
In 1954, Don Budge recorded his last significant victory in a North American tour with Pancho Gonzales, Pancho Segura, and Frank Sedgman when, in Los Angeles, he defeated Gonzales, by then the best player in the world.
28.
Don Budge continued playing until 1961, when he lost in the Southern Pro final to Jack Arkinstall in straight sets.
29.
Don Budge appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1948 and the Steve Allen Plymouth Show in 1951.
30.
Don Budge appeared as himself in the 1953 film Pat and Mike.
31.
Don Budge was the resident tennis pro at the Montego Bay Racquet Club in Jamaica in 1977.
32.
Don Budge was inducted into the National Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame, now the International Tennis Hall of Fame, at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1964.
33.
Don Budge was elected to the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.
34.
Don Budge wed Deirdre Conselman, the daughter of screenwriter and cartoonist William Conselman, at St Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago on June 2,1941.
35.
In December 1999, Don Budge was injured in an automobile accident from which he never fully recovered.
36.
Don Budge died on January 26,2000, at a nursing home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, aged 84.
37.
Don Budge is a consensus pick for being one of the greatest players of all time.
38.
Don Budge had a graceful, overpowering backhand that he hit with a slight amount of topspin and that, combined with his quickness and his serve, made him the best player of his time.
39.
Jack Kramer himself has written that Don Budge was, in the long run, the greatest player who ever lived although Ellsworth Vines topped him when at the height of his game.
40.
Don Budge owned the most perfect set of mechanics and he was the most consistent.
41.
Don Budge could keep them pinned to the baseline with his backhand too.
42.
Don Budge joined professional tennis in 1939 and was unable to compete in the Grand Slam tournaments.