[8] Budge studied at the University of California, Berkeley, in late 1933 but left to play tennis with the U.S. Davis Cup auxiliary team.

Accustomed to hard-court surfaces in his native California, Budge had difficulty playing on the grass courts in the east.

Budge reached the semi-finals of the West Canada championships in July, where he lost in five sets to Henry Prusoff.

"Tennis fans will be talking for days of the men's singles event and of Budge, whom the experts candidly admit "has everything".

[12] Budge beat Bud Chandler in the final in five sets to retain his California State championship title in June.

"Chandler went to the net often throughout the match, while Budge elected to play a baseline game almost exclusively, going to the webbing only when forced to by chop or cross court shots; Chandler, exhausted after his gruelling five-set match with John Murio in the semi-final on Saturday, fought largely on his nerve against the Champion, and at the end of yesterday's strenuous competition again was completely exhausted.

[18] In April, Budge won the North and south tournament at Pinehurst beating Hal Surface in three-straight sets for the loss of just one game with a "superb exhibition of speed and control".

[30] In December Budge won the Victorian championships beating John Bromwich in the final in a match in which "the hot, humid weather proved trying for the players".

[31] Budge gained the most fame for his match that year against von Cramm in the Davis Cup inter-zone finals against Germany.

[63] On July 29, 1940, Budge played an exhibition match in front of 2,000 people at the Cosmopolitan Club in Harlem against the American Tennis Association's top player Jimmie McDaniel.

In his book 'A Tennis Memoir' page 144 he said: The tear didn't heal, and the scar tissue that was formed complicated the injury and made it even serious.

I was able to carry on with my military duties ... as long as two years afterwards, in the spring of '45, I was given a full month's medical leave so that I could go to Berkeley and have an osteopath, Dr. J. LeRoy Near, work with me.This permanently hindered his playing abilities.

During his wartime duty he played some exhibitions for the troops in particular during the summer 1945 with the war winding down, Budge played in a US Army (Budge-Frank Parker) – US Navy (Riggs – Wayne Sabin) competition under the Davis Cup format: the main confrontations were the Budge-Riggs meetings knowing that both Americans were the best players in the world in 1942 just before being enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces and again when they came back to the professional circuit in 1945.

Amateur Nationals at Forest Hills) thereby giving Riggs an important psychological edge in their forthcoming peacetime tours.

In April 1955 Budge won the U. S. Pro Clay Court Championships at Fort Lauderdale beating Riggs in the final.

In 1973, at the age of 58, he and former champion Frank Sedgman teamed up to win the Veteran's Doubles Championship at Wimbledon before an appreciative crowd.

When Annie says she's never picked up a tennis racket, Daddy Warbucks' secretary tells an underling: "Have an instructor here at noon.

"[84] The reference is technically an anachronism, as the story is set in 1933, at which time Budge was an undergraduate at Berkeley and had not yet achieved prominence.

He had a graceful, overpowering backhand that he hit with a slight amount of topspin and that, combined with his quickness and his serve, made him the best player of his time.

"[89] Paul Metzler, in his analysis of ten of the all-time greats, singles out Budge as the greatest player before World War II, and gives him second place overall behind Jack Kramer.

[91] Jack Kramer himself has written that Budge was, in the long run, the greatest player who ever lived although Ellsworth Vines topped him when at the height of his game.

In 1983, Fred Perry ranked the greatest male players of all time and put them in to two categories, before World War 2 and after.

Perry's pre-WWII nominees all below Tilden and excluding himself “Budge Cochet Ellsworth Vines ’so powerful!’ Gottfried von Cramm Jack Crawford Jan Sato Jean Borotra Bunny Austin Roderick Menzel Baron Umberto de Morpurgo”.

The top eight players in overall points, with their number of first-place votes, were: Rod Laver (9), John McEnroe (3), Don Budge (4), Jack Kramer (5), Björn Borg (6), Pancho Gonzales (1), Bill Tilden (6), and Lew Hoad (1).

In 1988, a panel consisting of Bud Collins, Cliff Drysdale, and Butch Buchholz ranked their top five male tennis players of all time.

[94] More recently, an Associated Press poll conducted in 1999 ranked Budge fifth, following Laver, Pete Sampras, Tilden, and Borg.

Even more recently, in 2006, a panel of former players and experts was asked by TennisWeek to assemble a draw for a fantasy tournament to determine who was the greatest of all time.

The top eight seeds were Roger Federer, Laver, Sampras, Borg, Tilden, Budge, Kramer, and McEnroe.

In the early years of the 21st century, Sidney Wood compiled his list of the Greatest Players of All Time (later published posthumously in a memoir "The Wimbledon final that never was and other tennis tales from a bygone era").

Wood ranked Budge number one in his list, saying the decision was a "no-brainer" and said Budge was "recognized by his peers as the one player to have commanded not only every shot in the book for every surface, but also to have been blessed with the single most destructive tennis weapon ever- a bludgeon backhand struck with a sixteen ounce 'Paul Bunyan' bat.