Arthur David Larsen, Tennis Champion, Dies at 87

With a solid if not overly powerful left-handed serve, reliable groundstrokes, excellent foot speed and quick hands at the net, Larsen was the top-ranked player in the country in 1950, when he won the United States National Championship, the precursor to the United States Open, in Forest Hills, Queens, defeating Herbert Flam in a five-set final.

“Every day was a onesie day, or a fivesie day that’s what he called them and if he happened to run into you on, say, a threesie day, he’d tap you three times,” Dick Savitt, the 1951 Wimbledon champion, said in an interview this week.

Savitt, who lost to Larsen in the semifinals of the 1950 United States championship and beat him at Wimbledon in 1951, had a long history of playing against him, beginning with the national collegiate tournament in 1947.

Two months later, in a much publicized event, Savitt and other tennis players, including Don Budge, held a benefit tennis match to raise money for Larsen’s medical bills.

Arthur David Larsen was born in Hayward, Calif., on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, on April 17, 1925, and grew up in nearby San Leandro.

According to San Leandro Bytes, a news Web site, he began playing tennis at age 11 and won a tournament at the Olympic Club in San Francisco when he was 14.

After the war he played tennis for the University of San Francisco, which won the national championship in 1949.