Bud Collins, the passionate, often irreverent face of tennis for nearly half a century in his Wimbledon broadcasts and his newspaper and magazine columns, died on Friday at his home in Brookline, Mass. He was 86.
His death was announced by his wife, the photographer Anita Ruthling Klaussen, on her Facebook page.
Collins had largely been away from tennis since tearing tendons in his left leg in a fall at his hotel room while attending the 2011 United States Open in New York. The injury required many surgical procedures.
But last September, accompanied by his wife, he attended a ceremony at the Open in which the new media center was named in his honor.