Richard Sears

He was the son of Frederic Richard Sears and Albertina Homer Shelton. There are some controversial information regarding his date of birth, however the date of October 26 is considered as the most authentic according the most of the genealogy reports and researches.
He married Eleanor M. Cochrane on November 24, 1891 and they had Richard Dudley Sears, Jr. and Miriam Sears. His brothers Philip and Herbert were also tennis players.

He learned to play tennis in 1879. Sears spent the entire winter of 1885 at Cannes, France, with the Renshaw brothers and Dr. James Dwight, and had been in daily practice with them. The result was that he played better tennis than his friends ever saw him play before.

Sears was undefeated in the U.S. Championships, he won the first of his seven consecutive titles in 1881 while still a student at Harvard. (In those days, the previous year's winner had an automatic place in the final.)
He held the Harvard University championship three years and just lost it in 1885 to Joseph Sill Clark.

Bespectacled, mustachioed, wearing a necktie and cap on the court, Sears controlled competitive tennis in America from its very beginning. Attacking whenever presented with the opportunity, he moved into the forecourt to end points with crisp volleys before other players fully perceived that strategy.

Starting in the 1881 first round, he went on an 18-match unbeaten streak (seven consecutive U.S. National Championships) that would take him through the 1887 championships, after which he retired from the game.
Not until 1921 was his 18-match unbeaten run overtaken (by Bill Tilden). During his first three championships Sears did not lose a single set.
He was 19 when he won the inaugural U.S. Championships, and by the time he retired undefeated in 1887 because one year later Henry Slocum won by walkover.
Sears was the first 19-year old to win in the U.S., slightly older than Oliver Campbell was in 1890 and the youngest winner ever, Pete Sampras, in 1990.

He was the first U.S. No. 1 in the USLTA rankings, when they began in 1885 and retained the ranking in 1886 and 1887.

After giving up playing lawn tennis, Sears won the U.S. Court Tennis singles title in 1892 and went on to serve as USTA President in 1887 and 1888.

His grandson is the Massachusetts politician John W. Sears.

Richard was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1955.