LONDON, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- The 88-year reign of mixed doubles tennis champions Richard Norris Williams and Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman of the United States will come to an end when the final of this event is finished at the London 2012 Olympic Games on Sunday.

It was not the only claim to fame of Williams - he was also a survivor of the Titanic disaster.

When Williams won the gold medal at Paris 1924 - the last time mixed doubles was part of the Olympics - it was as much a reward for his resilience in recovering from the sinking of the liner 12 years earlier as his endeavors on the clay courts of the Colombes lawn tennis facility on the outskirts of Paris.

Williams spent more than six hours in the freezing waters of the Atlantic before his rescue and faced the prospect of his legs being amputated.

Born in 1891 and brought up in Switzerland, he and his father Charles Duane Williams were travelling to America on the Titanic with the intention that Richard would play tournaments during the summer before enrolling at Harvard University in the autumn.

During the disaster, Charles was killed when one of the ship's smoke stacks collapsed. Richard, then 21, who witnessed the incident, leapt from the ship as it went down. He found a collapsed lifeboat, which he hung on to for more than six hours until another lifeboat rescued him.

On boarding the rescue ship Carpathia, he was found to be suffering from severe pain in both legs and loss of circulation. However, he refused to accept medical advice that his legs should be amputated.

"He wasn't on the operating table or anything, but it (amputation) was certainly the suggested treatment," said American Lindsay Gibbs, author of Titanic: The Tennis Story. "When he first got onto the Carpathia he was fed breakfast and had a sip of brandy then found a spot in the kitchen of the Carpathia between the stove and wall to take a nap.

"When he woke up he was in immense pain with his legs and he hobbled to find a doctor. All the official doctors on the Carpathia were busy, but he came across a passenger who practised medicine.

"He was advised, in a rather cheery manner he recalled, to have his legs amputated. He asked if there were any other options and the man suggested that he could attempt to walk through the pain. So he did - and it worked."

Remarkably, only seven weeks later he won the Pennsylvania state championship followed by the clay court championships. By the end of the summer of 1912, Williams was the No.2 player in the United States.

He went on to have a very successful career, winning the US Open in 1914 - beating another Titanic survivor Karl Behr from United States in the quarterfinals - and 1916, and was a member of five triumphant Davis Cup teams.

The gold medal he won in 1924, though, was said to have been one of his most prized trophies and it came after he had overcome still more adversity.

"During his run to the gold medal he actually tore a ligament in his ankle," said Gibbbs.

"He wanted to withdraw from the competition, but his teammate Wightman refused. She told him that if he covered the net she would run everything down on the baseline. Clearly, the strategy was effective and he always attributed the win to her."

Richard died in Philadelphia in 1968 at the age of 77. Enditem

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