Don Budge - Retirement

Retirement

After retiring from competition Budge coached and conducted tennis clinics for children. According to Riggs' 1949 autobiography, as of that writing Budge owned a laundry in New York with Sidney Wood as well as a bar in Oakland. A gentleman on and off the court, he was much in demand for speaking engagements and endorsed various lines of sporting goods. With the advent of the Open era in tennis, in 1968 he returned to play at Wimbledon in the Veteran's doubles. 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.

In December 1999, Budge was injured in an automobile accident from which he never fully recovered. He died on January 26, 2000 at a nursing home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, aged 84.

Budge was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport, Rhode Island in 1964. Don Budge received the honor of being mentioned in a musical. He is known as the tennis instructor in the 1977 Broadway show Annie. His skill is referred to during the song "I think I'm gonna like it here." The reference is technically an anachronism, as the play is set in December, 1933, at which time Budge was an undergraduate at Berkeley and had not yet achieved prominence.

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