Full name Robert Duffield Wrenn Name Robert Wrenn Education Wake Forest University Country (sports) United States Role Golfer Former tours PGA TOUR | Retired 1903 Height 1.78 m PGA tour wins 1 Weight 77 kg | |
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Died November 21, 1925(1925-11-21) (aged 52)
New York, NY, USA Plays Left-handed (1-handed backhand) Residence Richmond, Virginia, United States | ||
Int. Tennis HoF 1955 (member page) | ||
Robert "Bob" Duffield Wrenn (September 20, 1873 – November 21, 1925) was a former co-world No. 1 left-handed American tennis player, four-time U.S. singles championship winner, and one of the first inductees in the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Biography
Wrenn was born in Highland Park, Illinois. Wrenn attended Harvard University where he was a prominent quarterback on the football team. He won his tennis titles in 1893, 1894, 1896 and 1897 (losing out to Fred Hovey in 1895). In 1898, he was serving in Cuba with Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders in the Spanish–American War. He contracted yellow fever while in Cuba.
Wrenn played for the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1903 together with his brother George. In the final against the British Isles at the Longwood Cricket Club, Boston, MA they were defeated 1–4 and Wrenn lost both his singles matches against Reginald and Laurence Doherty as well as the doubles against the Doherty brothers.
He was arrested in 1914 when the car he was driving ran over and killed Herbert George Loveday, the choir director of St Mary's Church, in Tuxedo Park, New York. Wrenn was exonerated when, according to The New York Times (May 21, 1914), "The Grand Jury, finding from testimony that the mechanism of the car had become disarranged, and the steering gear powerless, declined to find an indictment, and the complaint was dismissed."
Wrenn was vice-president of the United States Tennis Association from 1902 until 1911 and president from 1912 until 1915. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1955.