Jaroslav Drobný (; 12 October 1921 – 13 September 2001) was a
World No. 1 amateur tennis and
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice ...
champion. He left Czechoslovakia in 1949 and travelled as an
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
ian 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
The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, since 1877 and is pla ...
(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.
[ He had an excellent swinging left-handed serve and a good forehand.] Drobny played in his first Wimbledon Championship
The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, since 1877 and is play ...
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
John Albert Kramer (August 1, 1921 – September 12, 2009) was an American tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s. He won three Grand Slam tournaments (the U.S. Championships in 1946 and 1947, Wimbledon in 1947). He led the U.S. Davis Cup tennis ...
in the fourth round of the 1946 Wimbledon Championship before losing in the semifinals. 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
Francis "Frank" Arthur Sedgman (born 29 October 1927) is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. Over the course of a three-decade career, Sedgman won five Grand Slam singles tournaments as an amateur as well as 22 Grand Slam double ...
. Drobný was the losing finalist at Wimbledon in both 1949 and 1952 before finally winning it in 1954 by beating Ken Rosewall
Kenneth Robert Rosewall (born 2 November 1934) is an Australian former world top-ranking amateur and professional tennis player. He won a record 23 Majors in singles, including eight Grand Slam singles titles and, before the Open Era, a reco ...
for the title, the first left-hander to capture Wimbledon since Norman Brookes.
He won three singles titles at the Italian Championships (1950, 1951, and 1953).[
Drobný was ranked World No. 1 amateur in 1954 by Lance Tingay of ''The Daily Telegraph''.] He also won the French Open doubles title in 1948, playing with Lennart Bergelin
Sven Lennart Bergelin (10 June 1925 – 4 November 2008) was a Swedish tennis player and coach. As a player, for AIK, Bergelin won nine Swedish championship singles titles between 1945 and 1955, and the French Open doubles title in 1948. Bergeli ...
, and he won the mixed doubles title paired with Patricia Canning Todd
Patricia Canning Todd (born Mary Patricia Canning, July 22, 1922 – September 5, 2015) was an American tennis player who had her best results just after World War II. In 1947 and 1948, she won a total of four Grand Slam championships: one in sin ...
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
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...
. 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.
Defection
After the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948
Czechoslovak may refer to:
*A demonym or adjective pertaining to Czechoslovakia (1918–93)
**First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–38)
**Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–39)
**Third Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60)
**Fourth Czechoslovak Repu ...
, 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 long-distance runner Emil Zátopek
Emil Zátopek (; 19 September 1922 – 21 November 2000) was a Czech long-distance runner best known for winning three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He won gold in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres runs, but his final me ...
. 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
Gstaad ( ; ) is a town in the German-speaking section of the Canton of Bern in southwestern Switzerland. It is part of the municipality of Saanen and is known as a major ski resort and a popular destination amongst high society and the internati ...
, Switzerland on July 27, 1949, after disobeying instructions from the USSR government to not play. "All I had", he wrote later, "was a couple of shirts, the proverbial toothbrush and $50." 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.[
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 (at Lake House, Dormans Park, near East Grinstead Sussex) but only in his final appearance at Wimbledon in 1960, at the age of 38, did he represent his new homeland Great Britain. ]The London Gazette
''The London Gazette'' is one of the official journals of record or government gazettes of the Government of the United Kingdom, and the most important among such official journals in the United Kingdom, in which certain statutory notices are ...
announced on 24 July 1959 that he had been 'naturalised' on 8 May the same year.[
]
Achievements
During his amateur career, Drobný won over 130 singles titles, and was world ranked in the top amateurs 10 from 1946 to 1955. Drobný was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...
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.[Jaroslav Drobný]
. sports-reference.com Drobný is the only male tennis player who ever won a Wimbledon singles title while wearing glasses. Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943) is an American former World number 1 ranked female tennis players, world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 Grand Slam (tennis)#Tournaments, major titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's double ...
and Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova ( cs, Martina Navrátilová ; ; born October 18, 1956) is a Czech–American, former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 maj ...
are the only female Wimbledon champions wearing glasses. Arthur Ashe
Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. (July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993) was an American professional tennis player who won three Grand Slam singles titles. He started to play tennis at six years old. He was the first black player selected to the Un ...
, 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).
Ice hockey career
From 1938 to 1949 Drobný played center in the Czechoslovak ice hockey league.[ 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
The 14th Ice Hockey World Championships and 25th European Championship was the first after the Second World War. It was held from 15 to 23 February 1947 at Štvanice Stadium in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Eight teams participated, but the competit ...
in Prague.[ 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
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actual halls or muse ...
.
Drobný could have become the first ever European player to start in the National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...
when the Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making ...
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. The first European to play in the NHL eventually became Ulf Sterner from Sweden when he started for the New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its ho ...
for the first time on 27 January 1965.
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
Tooting is a district in South London, forming part of the London Borough of Wandsworth and partly in the London Borough of Merton. It is located south south-west of Charing Cross.
History
Tooting has been settled since pre-Saxon times. Th ...
, London a month before his 80th birthday.[
]
Grand Slam finals
Singles: 8 (3 titles, 5 runners-up)
Doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-up)
Mixed Doubles: 1 (1 title)
Performance timeline
1 Drobný did not play. His opponent got a walkover.
In popular culture
Ivan Blatný wrote a poem called ''Wimbledon'' which addresses Drobný.Jaroslav Drobný
International Ice Hockey Federation
References
Further reading
* Wallechinsky, David and Jaime Loucky (2009). "Ice Hockey: Men". In ''The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics: 2010 Edition''. London: Aurum Press Limited. p. 23.
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Drobny, Jaroslav
1921 births
2001 deaths
Czech male tennis players
Czechoslovak defectors
Czechoslovak emigrants to Egypt
Egyptian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Czechoslovak male tennis players
Egyptian male tennis players
French Championships (tennis) champions
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's singles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in men's doubles
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in mixed doubles
Ice hockey players at the 1948 Winter Olympics
IIHF Hall of Fame inductees
International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees
Medalists at the 1948 Winter Olympics
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Naturalized citizens of Egypt
Olympic ice hockey players of Czechoslovakia
Olympic silver medalists for Czechoslovakia
Olympic medalists in ice hockey
Tennis players from Prague
Wimbledon champions (pre-Open Era)
World number 1 ranked male tennis players