Wilberforce Eaves

Wilberforce Vaughan Eaves ( born December 10, 1867 in Melbourne, Australia, † 2 or February 10, 1920 in London) was a British physician and tennis player.

Life

Eaves was born in 1867 in Melbourne's St Kilda, however, came at an early age to England and graduated in 1889 in London to study medicine from. Later he took part in the Second Boer War. At the beginning of the First World War he enlisted again into the medical service of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was promoted to captain after a year.

An outstanding tennis player in 1895 he took part for the first time at the Wimbledon Championships and reached there directly the final, which he still lost to Wilfred Baddeley, despite a match ball. Two years later he reached the final of the U.S. Championships, but lost there too against Robert Wrenn in five sets. In 1907 he played for Great Britain in the Davis Cup. At the Olympic Games in London in 1908, he won the bronze medal. By 1911, he became a regular at the tournament of Wimbledon.

Eaves died in 1920 in a London nursing home from the effects of surgery.

Awards

• Member of the Order of the British Empire

Swell

• Obituary, from the British Medical Association ( ed): British Medical Journal of 21 February 1920 ISSN 0959-8138 ( online ( PDF) )
• Collins, B.: History of tennis. 2nd edition. New Chapter Press, New York 2010, ISBN 978-0-942257-70-0, pp. 688