The incredible story of two Titanic survivors and tennis icons - including one who refused to have frostbitten legs amputated and won U.S. Open TWICE

As the RMS Titanic makes a second run to the big screen next month, little is said about two athletes who survived the tragedy and went on to dominate professional tennis.

Richard Norris Williams and Karl Behr were among the best of the best in the tennis world - and their lives were thrown into disarray when the 'unsinkable' ship met its end in 1912.

Behr was a 26-year-old Yale graduate when he boarded the Titanic, mostly in pursuit of his future wife, Helen Newsom.

A lot in common: Richard Norris Williams, left, and Karl Behr, right, were both both highly ranked American tennis players who also survived the 1912 Titanic disaster



Disaster: The RMS Titanic sank in the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 2012, killing about 1,500 people

After the massive ship hit an iceberg on that fateful night, Behr was offered the chance to get out early with Newsom as they boarded lifeboat No. 5 - the second boat to escape.

It was widely reported that Mr Behr proposed to Newsom in the lifeboat that carried them away from the doomed vessel.

The couple were married about a year later - in March 1913.

Between 1906 and 1915, Behr was ranked in the U.S. top ten seven times - reaching No. 3 in 1914.

Doomed ship: This map shows the path of the Titanic when it sank and fell to the ocean floor on its way to New York

He died in 1949, and was posthumously inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 1969.

Richard Williams was 21 when he boarded the Titanic with his father on his way to the US Championships at Newport before entering Harvard in 1912.



Comeback: James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, is being re-released in 3D next month

His father was reportedly crushed to death one of the Titanic’s smoke stacks as the ship split in two.

Despite being waist-deep in the freezing waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Williams survived and was taken aboard the RMS Carpathia, the steamship made famous for plucking hundreds of Titanic passengers to safety.

A doctor offered to amputate Williams’ badly frozen limbs, but Williams rejected the doctor’s recommendation.

Williams went on to reach the quarter finals of the U.S. Open just months later, and won the tournament in 1914 and 1916.

He also won the Wimbledon title in 1920 and achieved a gold medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.

In 1957, Williams was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.