Background
Larned was born in 1872 and raised in Summit, New Jersey United States on the estate of his father, William Zebedee Larned. He was the eldest child of a wealthy lawyer and his wife.
Larned was born in 1872 and raised in Summit, New Jersey United States on the estate of his father, William Zebedee Larned. 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.
In 1892 he won the intercollegiate lawn-tennis championship for Cornell, at that time being rated the sixth best player in the United States. Able to return to tennis in 1901, he was national singles champion seven times between 1901 and 1911. He was also six times a member of the United States Davis Cup team and, in 20 years of active play, was ranked nineteen times among the first ten players in the United States. He fought with Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" during the Spanish-American War and contracted a rheumatic ailment. Rheumatoid arthritis later deteriorated his health forcing him to retire from tennis after losing the Davis Cup. Larned surpassed all other American players in the mastery of ground strokes, and, though he was sometimes erratic and weak as a defensive player, he was considered the most brilliant of American tennis players prior to William T. Tilden.
He retired from competition in 1912. Partially paralyzed by spinal meningitis, he was unable to do any of the activities he loved most, and became depressed.
He was right-handed (one-handed backhand)