It’s rare that a Yalie and Harvardian agree on anything – the competition between those esteemed Ivy League schools has fiery intensity. But Yale’s Charles Stedman Garland and Harvard’s Richard N. Williams II put the rivalry aside long enough to become the first Americans to win the Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Doubles Championship in 1920.
Garland won the 1919 Intercollegiate Singles and Doubles Championship playing for Yale, and his game propelled him to the Wimbledon singles semifinals in both 1919 and 1920. In 1919 he lost to homegrown Algernon Kingscote in five excruciating sets, 6-1, 6-4, 2-6, 5-7, 6-4. In 1920, Bill Tilden doused Garland 6-4, 8-6, 6-2.
Garland was ranked No. 8 in the U.S. for three straight years (1918-1920) and then turned his attention to executive matters in tennis. He was a prominent member of several United States National Lawn Tennis Association Committees, and was mainstay on the Davis Cup Committee. Garland served the game honorably after his playing days were over, becoming Vice President of the USLTA. He captained the 1927 Davis Cup team that lost to France, 3-2.
