Sven Davidson, 79; paved way for elite Swedish tennis players

Sven Davidson won the 1957 French Championship and a 1958 Wimbledon doubles title. (Scanpix Sweden via Associated Press/file 1956)

NEW YORK - Sven Davidson, the first Swede to win a Grand Slam tennis championship, a leading international player of the 1950s, and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, died May 28 in Arcadia, Calif. He was 79.

The cause was pneumonia, his family said.

Long before his countrymen Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, and Stefan Edberg captured a host of Grand Slam titles, Mr. Davidson provided a winning presence for Sweden at elite events.

After losing in the final of the French Championships - the forerunner of the French Open - for two consecutive years, Mr. Davidson won the men's singles title at Paris in 1957 with a straight-set victory over Herb Flam, who was ranked second in the United States.

At the 1958 Wimbledon championships, Mr. Davidson and his Swedish doubles partner, Ulf Schmidt, were unseeded, but they defeated the top-seeded Australian doubles team, Ashley Cooper and Neale Fraser, in the final in straight sets.

Sven Viktor Davidson, a native of Boras, Sweden, began playing at age 5 when his 10-year-old brother, Kurt, needed a partner. He became Sweden's junior champion in 1947 and was ranked among the world's top 10 amateurs every year from 1953 to 1958, reaching number 3 in 1957.

Mr. Davidson played for Sweden's Davis Cup team from 1950 to 1961, posting records of 39-14 in singles and 23-9 in doubles. He holds the Swedish record for most Davis Cup doubles victories.

He later played on the Grand Masters pro circuit and won its 1978 Wimbledon title, defeating Fraser. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Newport, R.I., in 2007.

Mr. Davidson lived in the United States since the early 1970s.