Ted Schroeder

One of the greatest players of his generation, Schroeder followed his brilliant Stanford career by winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships (now the U.S. Open) in the 1940s, but he never turned professional because, he once said, playing tennis was “always much too emotional for me to treat it like a profession.” Born in New Jersey, Schroeder’s game reached new heights when he moved to California when he was young. In 1940, at age 19, Schroeder and Jack Kramer became the youngest team to ever win the men’s doubles at the U.S. Championships. And then they won it again the following year. In 1942, while studying economics at Stanford, Schroeder captured the Intercollegiate Singles and Doubles Championships in the fall, partnering with Lawrence Dee to claim the doubles title. Later that year, he bested Frank Parker in five sets to win the U.S. Championship. Soon after, Schroeder enlisted in the Navy and served as a fighter pilot during World War II. Schroeder proved often that he was very good in five-setters. When he won Wimbledon in 1949, four of his matches, including the final three, went five sets. It was his final visit to Wimbledon because even though he was one of the top players in the world, it was his career in business that paid the bills. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Schroeder used his vacation time from his executive-level job at a refrigeration equipment company to play, and win, Wimbledon in 1949. Kramer and Schroeder helped lead the United States to the 1946 Davis Cup title, beating Australia 5-0 in Australia. Schroeder was a Davis Cup regular until he retired from competitive tennis in 1951. Schroeder was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1966. He died in 2006 at age 84.