Jaroslav Drobný

Jaroslav Drobný
Medal record
Ice hockey
Olympic Games
World Championships

Jaroslav Drobný
	Jaroslav Drobný (left) and Bob Mark in 1958
Country (sports)	Czechoslovakia; Bohemia and Moravia ; Egypt ; United Kingdom
Born	12 October 1921; Prague, Czechoslovakia
Died	13 September 2001 (aged 79); Tooting, London, England
Turned pro	1938 (amateur tour)
Retired	1969
Plays	Left-handed (one-handed backhand)
Int. Tennis HoF	1983 (member page)
Singles
Career record	998–238 (80.7%)[1]
Career titles	147
Highest ranking	No. 1 (1954, Lance Tingay)[2]
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	2R (1950)
French Open	W (1951, 1952)
Wimbledon	W (1954)
US Open	SF (1947, 1948)
Doubles
Career record	0–1
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open	F (1950)
French Open	W (1948)
Wimbledon	F (1951)
Grand Slam Mixed Doubles results
French Open	W (1948)
Wimbledon	SF (1948)

Jaroslav Drobný (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjaroslav ˈdrobniː];[3] 12 October 1921 - 13 September 2001) was a World No. 1 amateur tennis and ice hockey champion. He left Czechoslovakia in 1949 and travelled as an Egyptian citizen before becoming a citizen of the United Kingdom in 1959, where he died in 2001. In 1954, he became the first and, to date, only player with African citizenship to win the Wimbledon Championships (aside from dual citizen Roger Federer, who holds South African citizenship but officially represents only Switzerland in sports).

Tennis career

Drobný began playing tennis at age five and, as a ball-boy, watched world-class players including compatriot Karel Koželuh.[4] He had an excellent swinging left-handed serve and a good forehand.[5] Drobny played in his first Wimbledon Championship in 1938, losing in the first round to Alejandro Russell. After World War II Drobný was good enough to be able to beat Jack Kramer in the fourth round of the 1946 Wimbledon Championship before losing in the semifinals.[6] In 1951 and 1952 he won the French Open, defeating in the final Eric Sturgess and then retaining the title the following year against Frank Sedgman.[7] Drobný was the losing finalist at Wimbledon in both 1949 and 1952 before finally winning it in 1954 by beating Ken Rosewall for the title, the first left-hander to capture Wimbledon since Norman Brookes.[8]

He won three singles titles at the Italian Championships (1950, 1951 and 1953).[9][10][11]

Drobný was ranked World No. 1 in 1954 by Lance Tingay of The Daily Telegraph.[2] He has also won the French Open doubles title in 1948, playing with Lennart Bergelin, and he won the mixed doubles title paired with Patricia Canning Todd at 1948 French Open.

Drobný held the distinction of having competed at Wimbledon under four different national identities. In 1938, at the age of 16, he started for his native Czechoslovakia. A year later, following the German invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia, he was officially representing the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. After World War II, he started at Wimbledon yet again as Czechoslovak but chose to defect from the communist regime in 1949 – he left Czechoslovakia for good on 11 July 1949.[12]

Defection

After the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, Drobný became increasingly dissatisfied with the way the communist propaganda used him for its purposes. At the time, he was Czechoslovakia's most renowned athlete together with the phenomenal long-distance runner Emil Zátopek. Increasingly, it was becoming apparent to Drobný that he was no longer able to travel freely to tournaments and he grew dissatisfied with the new regime. This ultimately resulted in his defection from his native land.

Drobný defected from Czechoslovakia together with a fellow Czech Davis Cup player Vladimír Černík while playing at a tennis tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland on July 27th 1949, after disobeying instructions from the USSR government to not play.[13] "All I had", he wrote later, "was a couple of shirts, the proverbial toothbrush and $50."[4] Drobný and Černík were the core of the Czechoslovak Davis Cup team. Twice, the two of them had carried their country to the Davis Cup semifinals, losing to Australia in 1947 and in 1948. Drobný won 37 of his 43 Davis Cup matches.[7]

Becoming stateless, Drobný attempted to gain Swiss, US and Australian papers until finally Egypt offered him citizenship. He represented Egypt at Wimbledon from 1950 through 1959, including his title winning run in 1954. He is the only Egyptian citizen ever to win a Grand Slam tennis tournament. At the time of his Wimbledon win in 1954 Drobný was already living in the United Kingdom but only in his final appearance at Wimbledon in 1960, at the age of 38, did he represent his new homeland Great Britain.[14]

Résumé

During his amateur career, Drobný won over 130 singles titles, and was world ranked in the top 10 from 1946–55. Drobný was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1983. He is the only person to win the rare combination of Wimbledon in tennis and a world championship title in ice hockey.

In total, Drobný started in Wimbledon 17 times, always sporting his trademark tinted prescription glasses as an old ice hockey injury affected his eyesight.[14] Drobný is the only male tennis player who ever won a Wimbledon singles title while wearing glasses. Billie-Jean King and Martina Navratilova are the only female Wimbledon champions wearing glasses. Arthur Ashe, who was known for playing with spectacles, had switched to contact lenses by the time he won Wimbledon in 1975.

Drobný has won the most clay court titles of any one player (over 90). [15][16]

Ice hockey career

From 1938 to 1949 Drobný played center in the Czechoslovak ice hockey league.[4] He was a Silver medalist with the Czechoslovak ice hockey team in the 1948 Olympics. In the final match, Czechoslovakia and Canada tied goalless but Canada won the gold medal due to a better overall goal average. Drobný scored 9 goals in 8 games at the Olympics. Jaroslav Drobný was also a member of the Czechoslovak national ice hockey team which won the gold medals at the 1947 World Ice Hockey Championships in Prague.[14] He scored 15 goals in 7 games in the tournament including a hat-trick in the decisive victory over USA which gave his country its first ever World Championships title. In 1997, Drobný was inducted in the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame.[17] Drobný could have become the first ever European player to start in the National Hockey League when the Boston Bruins put him on their reserve in 1949. Apparently, he was offered $20,000 to come over to play for Boston but he refused, preferring to remain playing amateur ice hockey and retain the flexibility to play tennis during the summers.[18] The first European to play in the NHL eventually became Ulf Sterner from Sweden when he started for the New York Rangers for the first time on 27 January 1965.

Jaroslav Drobný's plaque at the 1st Czech Lawn Tennis Club in Prague

Jaroslav Drobný (r), playing for Egypt, being congratulated by 18-year-old Lew Hoad (l) after Drobný's victory in the final of the 1953 Italian Championships in Rome.

Autobiography

In 1955, Jaroslav Drobný published his autobiography titled Champion in Exile. He was married to Rita Anderson Jarvis, onetime English tournament player. He died 13 September 2001 in Tooting, London aged 79.[14][19]

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 8 (3 titles, 5 runners-up)

Result	Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent	Score
Loss	1946	French Championships	Clay	Marcel Bernard	3–6, 2–6, 6–1, 6–4, 6–3
Loss	1948	French Championships	Clay	Frank Parker	6–4, 7–5, 5–7, 8–6
Loss	1949	Wimbledon	Grass	Ted Schroeder	3–6, 6–0, 6–3, 4–6, 6–4
Loss	1950	French Championships	Clay	Budge Patty	6–1, 6–2, 3–6, 5–7, 7–5
Win	1951	French Championships	Clay	Eric Sturgess	6–3, 6–3, 6–3
Win	1952	French Championships (2)	Clay	Frank Sedgman	6–2, 6–0, 3–6, 6–4
Loss	1952	Wimbledon	Grass	Frank Sedgman	4–6, 6–2, 6–3, 6–2
Win	1954	Wimbledon	Grass	Ken Rosewall	13–11, 4–6, 6–2, 9–7

Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-up)

Result	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Win	1948	French Championships	Clay	Lennart Bergelin	Harry Hopman Frank Sedgman	8–6, 6–1, 12–10
Loss	1950	French Championships	Clay	Bill Talbert	Tony Trabert Eric Sturgess	6–2, 1–6, 10–8, 6–2
Loss	1950	Australian Championships	Grass	Eric Sturgess	John Bromwich Adrian Quist	6–3, 5–7, 4–6, 6–3, 8–6
Loss	1951	Wimbledon	Grass	Eric Sturgess	Ken McGregor Frank Sedgman	3–6, 6–2, 6–3, 3–6, 6–3

Mixed Doubles: 1 (1 title)

Result	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Win	1948	French Championships	Clay	Patricia Canning Todd	Doris Hart Frank Sedgman	6–3, 3–6, 6–3

Performance timeline

**Key**
W	F	SF	QF	#R	RR	Q#	A	NH

(W) Won; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (A) absent; (NH) not held. SR=strike rate (events won/competed)

	1938	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950	1951	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	SR	W–L	Win %
Grand Slam tournaments
Australian Open	A	A	A	Not held					A	A	A	A	3R	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	0 / 1	1–1	50%
French Open	A	A	Not held						F	A	F	A	F	W	W	SF	4R	A	4R	2R	4R	4R	2R	A	1R¹	3R	1R	1R	2 / 16	46–13	78%
Wimbledon	1R	3R	Not held						SF	QF	2R	F	SF	3R	F	SF	W	QF	1R	2R	4R	1R	1R	A	A	A	A	A	1 / 17	50–16	76%
US Open	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	SF	SF	QF	3R	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	A	1R	A	0 / 5	15–5	75%
Win–Loss	0–1	2–1							10–2	8–2	12–3	9–2	13–4	8–1	11–1	9–2	10–1	4–1	3–2	2–2	6–2	2–2	1–2		0–0	1–1	1–2	0–1	3 / 39	112–35	76%

¹ Drobný did not play. His opponent got a walkover.

In popular culture

Ivan Blatný wrote a poem called Wimbledon which addresses Drobný.[9][20][21]

gollark: So where's the new facility?

gollark: Seems to be working fine and not crashing...

gollark: This does mean I can't just revert to backup, which is irritating.

gollark: It might just crash if you go too near narwhalz.

gollark: Wait, you actually brought it up? Ingame? I thought the server was dead.

References

Garcia, Gabriel. "Jaroslav Drobny: Career match record". thetennisbase.com. Madrid, Spain: Tennismem SL. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
United States Lawn Tennis Association (1972). Official Encyclopedia of Tennis (First Edition), p. 426.
"Jaroslav" in isolation: [ˈjaroslaf].
"Jaroslav Drobny". The Guardian. 5 September 2001. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
"Jaroslav Drobny". www.tennis.co.nf. Archived from the original on 4 October 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
"Wimbledon – The Championships 1946 – Gentlemen's Singles" (PDF). AELTC.
"Jaroslav Drobný, 79, a Star In Tennis and Olympic Hockey". The New York Times. 16 September 2001.
"Wimbledon draws archive – 1954 Gentlemen's Singles". AELTC.
"Hall of Famers – Jaroslav Drobny". International Tennis Hall of Fame.
"Hoad Beaten By Drobny". The Newcastle Sun. NSW. 12 May 1953. p. 12 – via National Library of Australia.
"Muster wins another clay court title". Star-News. AP. 20 May 1996.
Sarah Kirkham (7 August 2014). "Throwback Thursday: The many faces of Jaroslav Drobný". www.wimbledon.com. AELTC. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015.
"CZECH TENNIS STARS DEFY GOVERNMENT". AP Archive. 25 July 1949. Retrieved 18 April 2018.
Jaroslav Drobný Archived 8 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine. sports-reference.com
Garcia, Gabriel. "Jaroslav Drobny: Career tournament results - Clay". thetennisbase.com. Madrid, Spain: Tennismem SL. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
Velickkovic, Nikola (29 June 2017). "Jaroslav Drobny Wimbledon Champion from Africa". Intelligencer Post. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
"IIHF Hall of Fame". International Ice Hockey Federation.
Grasso, John (2011). Historical Dictionary of Tennis. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. pp. 88, 89. ISBN 978-0810872370.
"Jaroslav Drobny". Telegraph Newspaper. 15 September 2001. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
Martin Tharp, Rachel Mikos, David Vaughan (22 February 2004) Ivan Blatny: the strange story of a Czech poet in English exile. radio.cz
Jaroslav Drobný. International Ice Hockey Federation

External links

Jaroslav Drobný at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
Jaroslav Drobný at the International Tennis Federation
Jaroslav Drobný at the Association of Tennis Professionals
Jaroslav Drobný at the Davis Cup
Biographical information and career statistics from Eliteprospects.com