"Titanic: The Tennis Story" Book Tells of Survivor Overcoming Near Leg Amputation to Win Modern-Day US Open

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Mar 19, 2012, 09:30 ET

NEW YORK, March 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A new book - TITANIC: THE TENNIS STORY by Lindsay Gibbs ($12.95, New Chapter Press) - tells the incredible stories of tennis players Dick Williams and Karl Behr, who survived the sinking of the Titanic 100 years ago on April 15, met on the rescue ship Carpathia, and went on to become teammates on the U.S. Davis Cup team and, incredibly, faced each other in the quarterfinals of the 1914 U.S. Championships (the modern-day US Open). Williams nearly had his legs amputated after surviving the night in the frigid water and went on to win the U.S. singles title two years after the tragedy. Behr first asked his girlfriend Helen Newsom to marry him on the Titanic and survived by a stroke of luck, being allowed into the second lifeboat before panic and the passengers realized the gravity of the event.

"Everyone I talk to about this book simply cannot believe this story," said Gibbs, a New York University film school graduate and blogger for www.TennisGrandstand.com. "It's more fascinating, heroic and romantic than the James Cameron movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Here, the love interests survive and the hero wins the modern-day US Open."

Behr, from New York, was a standout player at Yale and a Wimbledon doubles finalist in 1907 . Williams, whose father was killed on the Titanic, became a star at Harvard, a two-time U.S. singles champion (1914, 1916) and a Wimbledon doubles champion in 1920. He was a long-time resident of Philadelphia.

The book is the first novel for Gibbs, originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, now a resident of New York.

Founded in 1987, New Chapter Press is also the publisher of Roger Federer: Quest for Perfection by Rene Stauffer, The Bud Collins History of Tennis by Bud Collins, The Education of a Tennis Player by Rod Laver, The Wimbledon Final That Never Was by Sidney Wood, Acing Depression: A Tennis Champion's Toughest Match by Cliff Richey, Tennis Made Easy by Kelly Gunterman, On This Day In Tennis History by Randy Walker, A Player's Guide To USTA League Tennis by Tony Serksnis, Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games by Tom Caraccioli and Jerry Caraccioli, The Lennon Prophecy by Joe Niezgoda among others.