Bud Collins: Journalist whose invigorating prose and energy made him a celebrated authority on tennis

Collins' unbridled enthusiasm helped to open up the sport to a huge new television audience

Collins in 2002 with former players, from left to right, Chanda Rubin, Pam Shriver, Billie Jean King and Zina Garrison (AP)

If you asked friends and colleagues of Bud Collins to come up with words to describe the veteran American journalist and broadcaster you could be certain that one of them would be "colourful". It would be a reference not only to the outrageously garish trousers that Collins wore but also to his infectious energy behind the microphone and his high-octane writing style.

Collins, nevertheless, was much more than a clever wordsmith with an unusual take on sartorial elegance. His unbridled enthusiasm for tennis helped to open up the sport to a huge new television audience as it broke free from the shackles of amateurism and took on the mantle of glamour and celebrity that came with professionalism.

As the likes of Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe took full advantage of the opportunities created by the "Open" era, Collins was the broadcaster who conveyed their stories to the wider world better than anyone and to American audiences in particular. He did so for more than four decades.

Collins also brought great rigour to his work. He was meticulous in his research and became the most celebrated historian in tennis. His Modern Encyclopaedia of Tennis became a bible for those writing about the sport.

He was also an objective observer, prepared to criticise when he saw fit. It helped, no doubt, that he had personal experience of playing the game, having been good enough to win a national mixed doubles title in his own playing days and coach the Brandeis University tennis team. Even into his seventies he was still organising media tennis competitions at tournaments where he was working.

Arthur Worth Collins Jr was born in Lima, Ohio, but grew up in Berea, near Cleveland. "Few people know where my nickname, Bud, came from," Collins revealed in a television interview in 2013. "My aunt Anna looked into the crib when I was only a few months old and said: 'He looks as sweet as a rosebud.' And after that, it stuck."

While studying at Boston University, Collins worked for the Boston Herald, where he was given his first opportunities to write about tennis. In 1963 he moved to The Boston Globe, where his first byline appeared from a Davis Cup tie in Adelaide. "This is another world, where Christmas comes in the Summertime, the Davis Cup matches come the day after Christmas, and both events have achieved such spectacular acceptance that they are regarded almost as seriously as beer drinking," he wrote.

Collins covered tennis, boxing and politics and also wrote about travel. Broadcasting eventually became the focal point of his career, but he was always an entertaining writer, as readers of The Independent might recall from his Wimbledon columns in the newspaper's early years.

He loved tennis, but was not blinded by it. Steve Flink, a long-time colleague and friend, recalled a cover story for World Tennis magazine in 1976 headlined "Are the Pros Conning Us?" in which Collins cited players he felt had not been giving their best away from the major tournaments. "Taking a stance like that was a gutsy move for the dean of American tennis writers," Flink wrote recently on the Tennis Channel website.

Collins was one of the first newspaper journalists to make a successful switch to television. He began his broadcasting career with WGBH before commentating for CBS at the US Open from 1968 to 1972, which was when he began a 35-year stint with NBC, for whom he covered the French Open and Wimbledon. His other TV employers included ESPN, the Tennis Channel, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

If his bow tie was one distinguishing feature, it was the trousers that always made Collins stand out from the crowd. He brought back colourful fabrics from around the world which his tailor made into gaudy pairs of trousers. Strawberry designs were a particular favourite at Wimbledon.

Collins' commentaries were just as colourful, peppered by his personal nicknames for players. Steffi Graf was "Fraulein Forehand", Chris Evert was "Chris America", Marat Safin the "Headless Horseman" and Serena and Venus Williams "Sisters Sledgehammer".

For years the BBC did not conduct post-match interviews at Wimbledon, so Collins was usually the man who spoke to the players the moment they walked off court. He had a human touch that players responded to, whether they were elated or in the depths of despair.

His empathy with the players was encapsulated as recently as 2009 at the end of Andy Roddick's post-Wimbledon final press conference after the American had lost, agonisingly, to Roger Federer, 17-15 in the fifth set. "Liberate this man," Collins said after his fellow American had dutifully answered all his questions. "Well done, Andy." A grateful Roddick simply replied: "Thank you."

Collins' health took a turn for the worse after a fall in 2010. His third wife, the photographer Anita Ruthling Klaussen, whom he married in 1994, nursed him through his latter years. Last month she posted a Valentine's Day photograph of him clutching a tennis racket and ball, which she said was very therapeutic for him.

Billie Jean King summed up Collins' contribution to tennis. "Few people have had the historical significance, lasting impact and the unqualified love for tennis as Bud Collins," she said. "He was an outstanding journalist, an entertaining broadcaster and as our historian he never let us forget or take for granted the rich history of our sport."

Arthur Worth Collins, Jr, journalist, broadcaster and historian: born Lima, Ohio 17 June 1929; married firstly Palmer Collins (marriage dissolved; one daughter), 1986 Mary Lou Barnum (died 1990), 1994 Anita Ruthling Klaussen; seven stepchildren; died Brookline, Massachusetts 4 March 2016.