Tennis Hall of Famer Dennis Ralston dies

Dennis Ralston, a Tennis Hall of Famer who won five Grand Slam doubles championships, approached individual glory in the 1966 Wimbledon finals and went on to a distinguished career as a coach and teacher, died Dec. 6 at his home in Austin, Texas. He was 78.

The cause was brain cancer, said his wife, Linda.

For a few years in the 1960s, when Grand Slam tournaments were not yet open to professionals, Ralston was regarded as not simply the best tennis amateur in America, but a prodigy who had a chance to become a World No. 1 like Don Budge, Jack Kramer and Pancho Gonzales, his onetime coach. “Mechanically, he had everything,” Kramer later told Sports Illustrated. “Oh, maybe not enough spin on his second serve, but outside of that - everything.”

Ralston was 5 when he played in his first tournament, losing to an 11-year-old near his home in Bakersfield, Calif. At age 17, he skipped his high school graduation to compete at Wimbledon for the first time, paying for his trip to England in part with $500 he won as a regional junior champion, and renting an attic flat in London for less than $2 a day.

He and his future college roommate, 21-year-old Rafael Osuna of Mexico, teamed up to defeat the British duo of Mike Davies and Bobby Wilson in straight sets in the 1960 final, becoming the first unseeded team to win the Wimbledon doubles title and the second-youngest men’s champions in tournament history.

Ralston, a 6-foot-2 righthander with strawberry blond hair, joked that he had chosen Wimbledon over graduation because he “didn’t have a date for the prom.”

He later won collegiate titles at the University of Southern California and excelled in doubles matches, partnering with Chuck McKinley to win the U.S. National Championships in 1961, 1963 and 1964, and with Clark Graebner to win the 1966 French Championships on clay. He reached the mixed-doubles finals at a Grand Slam four times, playing with Ann Haydon Jones, Billie Jean King, Françoise Dürr and Darlene Hard.

But he also drew criticism for dropping marquee matches against lesser opponents and for losing his temper when a point didn’t go his way. Scowling and yelling at himself after minor mistakes (“You’re so bad it’s unbelievable!”), he sometimes kicked his racket and drove balls over the stands, acquiring the nickname “Dennis the Menace.”

Ralston was by then struggling with bad knees - he had 16 knee operations, the first when he was 18 — and turned pro soon after the match, reportedly signing a $70,000 contract for two years. “Professional tennis offers me a future,” he said, “while amateur tennis in the United States offers a player nothing.”

The landscape for young tennis players changed rapidly over the next two years. Major tournaments opened themselves to pros, and Ralston joined the World Championship Tennis tour as one of its original stars, the so-called Handsome Eight, who were credited with helping to modernize professional tennis and pave the way for the current ATP Tour.

Ralston retired in 1977, with an overall record of 260-187.