Chris Garner enters his 11th season as the head coach of the Navy men’s tennis team in the fall of 2024. He has led the Mids to an overall record of 230-118, which includes a combined 72-8 record against Patriot League opponents.
Garner’s teams have posted a 429-161 record in his 17 seasons as a head coach.
Garner has guided Navy to six Patriot League Tournament titles and an appearance in the championship match in each of the nine tournaments that have been contested during his time on The Yard.
He is a six-time recipient of the league’s coach-of-the-year accolade. Garner’s Navy players have combined for 25 all-league awards and have been named the league’s player of the year six times, the rookie of the year four times, the doubles team of the year six times and the scholar-athlete of the year eight times.
Additionally, Navy has been recognized as an ITA All-Academic Team in eight of his last nine seasons. The team also earned the 2023-24 USNA Academic Dean’s Award for Excellence for being the varsity team with the highest quality point average over the full academic year.
The Mids posted a 28-15 record during the 2023-24 season and earned the No. 2 seed in the Patriot League Tournament. Navy advanced to the championship match of the event for the ninth time in nine tournaments under Garner.
His inaugural 2015 season at Navy was a memorable one as he guided the Mids to an overall record of 20-11, the 2015 Patriot League Tournament title and a return to the NCAA Tournament. Six of Navy’s 11 losses on the season came to teams that held a national ranking during the season: Old Dominion, UNC Wilmington, College of Charleston, San Francisco and Fresno State during the regular season, with a loss to Texas coming in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Garner was selected as the 2015 Patriot League Coach of the Year.
Garner led the Mids to an overall record of 22-9 and a No. 1 seed in the 2016 Patriot League Tournament. Four of Navy’s losses came in matches decided by the final score of 4-3, with two more defeats coming to No. 45 Princeton and No. 15 Columbia. Individually, Austin Jones capped his career by becoming just the third Mid to be tabbed as the Patriot League Player of the Year.
The 2017 campaign saw Navy total a 22-18 record on the year and a combined 6-2 record in matches played against league competition. The Mids also dropped matches to a number of standout programs such as SMU, William & Mary and Penn.
Garner’s 2018 Mids advanced to the NCAA Tournament as the league champion. Navy posted an overall record of 28-11 and compiled a 10-1 record against Patriot League foes that year. The Mids entered the league tournament as the top-seeded team and made that seed hold up as Navy won the league championship for the second time in his four seasons.
Garner himself was selected as the 2018 league coach of the year as well as the Wilson / ITA Atlantic Region Coach of the Year.
Navy made its second trip to the NCAA Tournament in as many years in 2019. Navy ended the year with a 31-14 record, which included a 9-0 record against league foes. He was recognized as the coach of the year for the third time, while Andrew Ton was named the league’s player of the year and Derrick Thompson received league rookie-of-the-year honors.
The Mids posted a 9-1 record during the abbreviated 2021 season. That included a combined record of 7-0 against Patriot League foes during the regular season and tournament. The lone loss on the season came to 19th-ranked Oklahoma State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The match against the Cowboys marked the fourth time Garner has taken the Mids to the postseason. He earned his fourth Patriot League Coach-of-the-Year award for his efforts in 2021.
In 2021-22, Navy finished the season with an overall record of 32-11, received the No. 1 seed in the league tournament and posted a 3-0 mark during the event itself to win the title for a fifth time. The following week, Navy’s Nos. 1 and 3 doubles teams won matches at No. 15 North Carolina to record the second point by a Patriot League men’s or women’s team during the NCAA Tournament, and the first since Navy’s Mitch Koch won a singles match in the 1999 tournament.
Garner received the league’s coach-of-the-year honor in 2022. Additionally, Derrick Thompson was named the league’s player and scholar-athlete of the year and earned a CoSIDA Academic All-America laurel.
Injuries hampered the Mids in the early part of the 2023 dual match season. Navy entered league play with an 11-17 record, but won each of its six league regular season matches to claim the No. 1 seed in the postseason. The Mids would go on to win each of their three tournament matches to win the program’s fifth title in a row and qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Garner received the league coach-of-the-year nod, with Sasha Panyan being named the league’s player and scholar-athlete of the year.
Garner arrived on The Yard fresh off of leading Amherst to the 2014 NCAA (DIII) Championship. The Lord Jeffs posted a 36-3 record during the 2013-14 season to win the program’s second NCAA team crown in four years. Additionally that year, Joey Fritz won the NCAA singles title and Fritz teamed with Justin Reindel to advance to the semifinal round in doubles.
The 2014 crown capped Garner’s seven-year stint as the head coach at Amherst. He guided the Lord Jeffs to an overall record of 199-43 (.822) –– 134-16 (.893) over his last four seasons –– and to at least the semifinal round of the NCAA Tournament in five of his years. Amherst won NCAA crowns in 2011 and ‘14, advanced to the NCAA finals in 2009 and ‘10, and won the third-place match in the 2013 edition of the tournament. The Lord Jeffs also reached the quarterfinal round in the 2012 edition of the event, which gave Garner a record of 24-4 in six seasons of NCAA Tournament play.
Amherst also compiled a 49-7 (.875) record in NESCAC regular season matches under Garner. The Lord Jeffs entered the conference tournament seeded no lower than second in each of his last six seasons, which included them earning the No. 1 seed in 2011, ‘12 and ‘13. The program would go on to claim three NESCAC Tournament titles (2011, ‘12, ‘14), reach the finals on two additional occasions (2009, ‘13) and post a 9-4 (.692) record in NESCAC Tournament play.
Nationally, Garner’s players totaled 22 ITA All-America accolades. In addition to the 2014 run of success by Fritz and Reindel, Austin Chafetz and Luis Rattenhuber won the 2012 NCAA doubles title and Mark Kahan advanced to the 2013 singles final.
A native of Long Island, N.Y., Garner was a standout player in his own right. He was the No. 1 ranked player in the country in the 14-and-under age group in 1983, the No. 1 ranked player in the under 16’s in 1984 and was the No. 3 player in the under 18’s from 1985-86. He competed on the U.S. Junior Davis Cup team from 1985-87 and amassed 12 National Junior titles before entering the collegiate ranks.
Garner earned All-America honors at Georgia before joining the professional tour. He attained an ATP ranking of No. 120 in 1991, advanced to the Round of 16 at the 1993 Australian Open and recorded victories over some of the top players in the world during his pro career.
After his playing career ended in 1994, Garner served as a private tennis coach for both professional and junior players before becoming an assistant coach at Colorado for one season (2004-05). The Buffaloes ended his lone season at the school ranked 59th nationally by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association and with a 9-15 record. He would then spend two years as an assistant coach at Ohio State, during which time he also completed his undergraduate degree. The Buckeyes were a combined 26-0 against Big Ten competition, compiled an overall record of 58-4 –– 28-2 in 2005-06; 30-2 in 2006-07 –– advanced to the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Tournament in both seasons and ended the years ranked fifth and third, respectively, by the ITA.
A grandfather of his fought in the Navy during World War II and was stationed on the USS New Orleans and the USS Salt Lake City.
The Garner family, which includes wife Monika, daughter Gigi and sons Luke (a senior on the Navy tennis team) and Finn (a 2023 graduate of Navy who was an all-league tennis player), resides in nearby Arnold.
