Savitt is one of four American men who have won both the Australian and British Championships in one year, following Don Budge (1938) and preceding Jimmy Connors (1974) and Pete Sampras (1994 and 1997).
[2] He and his family moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1944, as his mother had a bad skin condition and needed the warmer weather.
[2][3] Despite considering tennis his "second" sport after basketball, he won the Texas University Interscholastic League boys singles championship in 1944–1945.
[3] Still without any coaching, in 1950 Savitt reached the U. S. Tennis Championship semifinals at Forest Hills, losing to Art Larsen.
[13] He won the Australian Open Singles title, winning in straight sets in the 61-minute final against Ken McGregor.
[2][3][6][18] In the Jewish parts of North London, Savitt said "Nobody knew tennis there, but after I won people started picking up rackets".
[15] In September 1952, he beat Art Larsen to win the Pacific Coast men's singles tennis championship.
when Dick Savitt won Wimbledon, his right to a place on the Davis Cup team was challenged in some circles because he was Jewish.
[citation needed] Allison Danzig, the senior American tennis writer, called him America's best hope for victory.
[2][3] Ted Schroeder, who had lost all three of his Davis Cup matches while losing 9 out of 10 sets in the process the year before and who was in semi-retirement, was chosen by non-playing captain Frank Shields.
[25] Without Savitt playing singles, and with Schroeder losing two of his three matches, the United States lost the 1951 Davis Cup to Australia.
[26] Members of the Association's Eastern, New England, Southern, Florida, and Texas delegations, whose chief spokesman was Gardnar Mulloy, were in favor of Savitt being named the No.
[27][28] As it was reported by Time magazine, "the loudest talker was Frank Shields, non-playing captain of the losing U.S. Davis Cup team.
Shields had ignored Savitt in the Davis Cup matches, had put his confidence in aging (30) Ted Schroeder ... who turned out to be the goat of the series.
[3] He later explained that there was insufficient money in the amateur game to support his needs, requiring him to pursue his business career.
In April 1954 he won the clay court River Oaks Championshipsin Houston, Texas defeating Sven Davidson, Gardnar Mulloy, Vic Seixas, and Ham Richardson in the final, the latter three members of the U.S. Davis Cup team.
In August 1957 he won the Eastern Grass Court Championships at South Orange, New Jersey defeating U.S. Davis Cup players Ham Richardson and Vic Seixas in the final two rounds in best-of-five set matches.
In 1958, Savitt moved back to New York for business reasons and launched a part-time comeback in tennis.
That year, he won his second National Indoors title, defeating Grant Golden, Kurt Nielsen, and Budge Patty in the final three rounds.
[15] In 1961, he won gold medals in both singles (defeating American Mike Franks in the final), and doubles (with Franks, defeating South Africans Rod Mandelstam and Julie Mayers), at the 1961 Maccabiah Games in Israel, the third-largest sporting event in the world.