“I used to sleep with my racket,” he told the New York radio station WINS this year.

After graduating from Tilden Technical High School in Chicago, he won a scholarship to Xavier University of Louisiana, but he left in 1941 to join the Army and served for four years. In 1946 he won a scholarship to Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit, where he anchored the tennis team for two seasons and competed in N.C.A.A. tournaments.

He left college again in 1947 to play tennis on the West Coast. In 1954, Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College (now Tennessee State University) lured him back to college as a player-coach. He earned a bachelor of science degree in physical education there in 1955.

Mr. Ryland won various local tennis titles in the cities where he lived, and he continued to play competitively into his 80s. He also became known as a tennis teacher, especially at the Midtown Tennis Club in New York, where he worked from 1963 to 1990. Arthur Ashe, Harold Solomon and Renee Blount were among those he tutored.

“You could almost identify Robert Ryland students based on how they struck the ball and how solid they were as players,” Ms. Allen said in a phone interview.

She said that Mr. Ryland, a friend of her mother’s, first gave her coaching when she was 11 and wasn’t quite ready to embrace the sport. She became more passionate years later, and while in college committed herself to becoming a pro; others were telling her she was already too old, she said, but Mr. Ryland knew better.

“It was his ability to see where an athlete was in their journey and what they needed to get to the next step” that made him a good coach, she said. “When I finally got the tennis bug, he had laid a good foundation for me to build on.”

Mr. Ryland also coached celebrities, either teaching them the game or trying to make them better at it.

Source: New York Times

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