William Augustus Larned was born in Summit, New Jersey, and lived most of his life in that state and in New York. He was the son of William Zebedee and Katharine (Penniman) Larned, and a descendant of William Learned who emigrated to Massachusetts before 1632.
He studied at Cornell University but did not graduate.
During the Spanish-American War Larned was a private in Troop A of Roosevelt's "Rough Riders, " and took part in the battle of San Juan Hill. For several years thereafter he suffered from the effects of West Indian fever. Soon after the United States entered the World War, having earlier learned to pilot an airplane, he was commissioned captain in the aviation section of the Signal Corps, and stationed in Washington as head of an examining board for officers in the air service. In October 1917 he sailed for France and later went to England where he was first assistant, and then aviation officer, Base Section, No. 3. He left the service in June 1919 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
Although he excelled at many sports, prominent among them being golf and ice-hockey, his greatest interest always centered in lawn tennis. His first big success was the winning of the intercollegiate championship in October 1892, when he represented Cornell; and during the next twenty years until his retirement in 1912 he won scores of championship titles in various sections of the country. During that period he was rated No. 1, eight years; No. 2 five years; No. 3 four years; No. 5 one year, and No. 6 one year.
In the international matches for the Davis Cup, he represented the United States on six different occasions, winning nine matches and losing five. For the famous Longwood Bowl at Boston he played seventeen years, winning twelve times. He perhaps surpassed all the other American lawn tennis players in mastery of ground-strokes, and it was his ability in this aspect of the game that gave him his fame. No player has excelled him in the ease and facility with which he executed them, particularly those on the backhand side, generally a weak point in other players; and none showed a wider range or more brilliant placing ability. In attack, he was supreme and at times invincible, but in defense his skill did not equal that of some others of his time, particularly R. D. Wrenn and the famous Doherty brothers of England.
Allowed to play the game in his own way, he swept everything before him, but opposed by a perfect defense or the strategic tactics of the best court generals, he was beaten sometimes by men ranked officially below him. Furthermore, he never fully conquered an erratic tendency to be upset by small annoyances, which would throw him off his game at times.
Larned's health was poor during the last part of his life. He suffered a nervous breakdown two years before his death, and later an attack of spinal meningitis, which compelled him to depend upon a cane. He chafed under the consequent limitation to his activities, and in a period of despondency shot himself with an army revolver at the Knickerbocker Club, New York, some time between 11 P. M. , December 15, and 10 A. M. , December 16, 1926.
Larned was officially ranked among the first ten players of the United States nineteen times within twenty years, the only missing season being that of 1898 when he was in Cuba. He was the inventor of the steel-framed racket that came into wide use. A bronze tablet dedicated to his memory has been placed in the concrete wall of the stadium of the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, New York, where many of the Davis Cup matches have been played.
Larned never married.
