Hamilton “Ham” Richardson
Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Tennis, 1950-65
Tulane University/Amateur Tennis/US Tennis/Pro Tennis
Inducted: 1972
Hamilton “Ham” Richardson was one of the top tennis players in Louisiana history. A talented junior tennis player in Baton Rouge, Richardson, won the National Boys Championships at age 15, chose to attend Tulane University to play for legendary Green Wave tennis coach
Emmett Paré, also a member of the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame. After establishing himself as Tulane’s greatest tennis player, he went on to tremendous international success as well.
During his Tulane days from 1952-55, Richardson won a pair of NCAA singles titles and four SEC singles and doubles titles while maintaining a 3.92 grade point average. In 1954 while at Tulane, Richardson was honored as one of America's Ten Most Outstanding Young Men and he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1955 to study at Oxford University.
One of America's top players in 1956 and 1958, Richardson was the holder of 17 national titles, including the 1958 U.S. National (now the U.S. Open) doubles championship, which he won with Alex Olmedo. A student-athlete during tennis' amateur era, he was a Rhodes Scholar studying full time at Oxford University the first year he achieved the number one ranking.
Though tennis was never his profession, he was ranked among America's top 10 players for 11 years, and was a member of seven U.S. Davis Cup teams, including the 1954 and 1958 Davis Cup championship squads, earning a record of 20-2 (17-1 in singles, 3-1 in doubles). Richardson's .944 winning percentage remains the second-best singles winning percentage, among players with at least 12 matches played in United States Davis Cup history and his 17 singles victories ties him with Barry MacKay for eighth place on the list of most American Davis Cup singles victories behind such notable names as John McEnroe (41), Andre Agassi (30), Arthur Ashe (27), Bill Tilden (25), Vic Seixas (24), Don Budge (19) and Wilmer Allison (18). Richardson also posted a 2-0 record as a Davis Cup captain.
Richardson reached the semifinals of Forest Hills twice and the semifinals of Wimbledon and the French Championships once each. He defeated four Wimbledon champions -- Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, Ashley Cooper and Neale Fraser in four days to win the 1956 Eastern Grass Court Championships at the Orange Lawn Tennis Club in New Jersey.
He regularly played mixed doubles with Althea Gibson, the first African American woman to win tennis's major championships, and together they never lost a match. Richardson traveled with Gibson on a U.S. State Department-sponsored Goodwill Tour of Southeast Asia in 1959. In later years he enjoyed explaining that playing tennis was a Richardson family tradition begun by his father's stepfather, Trudeau Thompson, a mechanical engineer who worked on the construction of the Mississippi River levee and drew the outlines of a tennis court on the dirt wherever he was working so he could play during his off hours.
Richardson was recognized as one of the first world class athletes to compete successfully despite having diabetes. Already one of the best American juniors when he was diagnosed with the disease in 1949 at age 15, he refused to comply with doctors who told him his condition meant that he would have to give up virtually all physical activity, including the sport he loved. Still, his condition presented ongoing challenges. He managed to win the 1950 French junior championships (now known as the French Open junior championships) at age 17 despite having to spend every night at the American Hospital in Paris while doctors tried to stabilize his fluctuating blood sugar levels. He allowed researchers at Tulane Medical School to draw his blood during collegiate matches to study the effects of exercise on a diabetic.
After working for several years as a Legislative Assistant for U.S. Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, he went on to a successful career in the brokerage and investment banking business. In addition to the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame, he was selected for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Collegiate Hall of Fame, the Southern Tennis Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Athletic Hall of Fame, and the Tulane Athletics Hall of Fame.
He passed away in 2006 at the age of 73 due to complications from diabetes.
