Never beaten in the U.S. Championships, the original singles champ, Richard Dudley Sears won his first of seven titles in 1881 while still a Harvard ('83) student. As one of 24 entries, he, a Bostonian, ventured onto the lawn of the Newport (RI) Casino in knickerbockers, long wool socks, a necktie and cap, and wielding a slightly lopsided racket (similar to those for court tennis) that weighed 16 ounces.

Beating first-round opponent Powell, 6-0, 6-2, Dick was off on an 18-match streak that would carry him through the Championships of 1887, after which he retired from the game. Not until the challenge round format was abandoned and 1920-21 champion Bill Tilden beat Zenzo Shimidzu, 6-2, 6-3, 6-1, to reach the 1922 semis (and register a 19th successive win in the Championships), was Sears' record eclipsed.

Sears, 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, later recalled the Championships' launching in '81: "...the nets were four-feet at the posts and three-feet at center. This led to a scheme of attack by playing, whenever possible, across court to avoid lifting drives over the highest part of the net at the sidelines. This method just suited me. I had taken up mild form of volleying, and all I had to do was tap the balls, as they came over, first to one side then to the other, running my opponent all over the court."

A few of the players served underhand, though not the right-handed Sears. In the final, he beat William Glyn, an Englishman who regularly summered at Newport, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2. During his first three championships Sears lost no sets, concluding the 1883 tournament with a 6-2, 6-0, 9-7 victory over his mentor James Dwight.

In that year he began to hit a topspin forehand that he'd seen used in England by the originator Herbert Lawford. Since the challenge round was instituted in 1884 he had to play but one match against the victor in the all-comers tournament, to retain the title the last four years. Then he lost one set each to Howard Taylor in '84, Godfrey Brinley in '85 and Livingston Beeckman in '86.

Those last four years he used a prized racket given to him by the all-time Wimbledon champ, Willie Renshaw, and won four singles and doubles titles with it. He and Dwight won five times together, and he won once with Joseph Clark, 1885. Sears was the first of the 19-year-olds to conquer the U.S., slightly older than Oliver Campbell in 1890, and the very youngest, Pete Sampras in 1990. He was No. 1 in the U.S. 1885, 1886 and 1887, the first years of the national rankings. Scion of a prominent Boston family, here was born there October 16, 1861, and died there April 8, 1943. His older brother, Fred, played with Dwight, possibly the first tennis in the U.S. and a younger brother, Philip, was in the U.S. Top Ten five years. A cousin, Eleo Sears, is also in the Hall of Fame. After giving up lawn tennis, Sears won the U.S. Court Tennis singles title in 1892. He served as USTA president in 1887 and 1888 and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1955.