Franjo Šefer ( sr, Фрањо Шефер ;
german: Francis Schaeffer or ; born 1905 in
Vienna) was a
Yugoslav tennis player of
Austrian-Jewish
The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewis ...
descent.
Early life and family
Franjo Šefer was born in 1905 in
Vienna to a
Jewish family. They moved to
Karlovac
Karlovac () is a city in central Croatia. According to the 2011 census, its population was 55,705.
Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County. The city is located on the Zagreb- Rijeka highway and railway line, south-west of Zagre ...
in 1910, where he made his first steps on the tennis court. Šefer was often trained with another prominent player from Karlovac,
Alexander Podvineć. Šefer joined
HAŠK, where
Krešimir Friedrich and Nikola Antolković played.
Tennis career
Franjo Šefer played for the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia Davis Cup team starting in 1928. In 1933 he also became the team captain. Three times in a row he was a champion of Yugoslavia (1929, 1930, 1931). He won seven titles altogether, counting the men's and mixed doubles, and he scored a victory over
Franjo Punčec at the international tournament in
Bled with 6:4, 6:1.
In addition to the many years he spent at the forefront of the rankings, Šefer supplied the Yugoslav national team its first individual victory in the
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...
. It was in
Zagreb, the second appearance of the Yugoslav National Team in the Davis Cup against
Finland in 1928. Šefer's fourth Davis Cup appearance came in 1930 against
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
in Belgrade, where he was the real hero of the match, in which he achieved the first Yugoslavian team victory in this competition. He parted ways with the national team in
Budapest in the Davis Cup match against
Hungary, where he sealed the 3-2 team victory, partnering Punčec and winning the doubles. In coaching, he is credited with discovering
Dragutin Mitić, helping him in the early stages and introducing him to the Davis Cup team.
He set to tour
India in 1934 and 1935 along with
Josip Pallada
Josip Palada ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Палада, ; 5 February 1912 – 4 May 1994) was a Yugoslavian tennis player.
Early life and family
Palada was born in Zagreb and started to play tennis at the age of fifteen on the courts of the Neurologica ...
,
Franjo Punčec, and
Franjo Kukuljević. In 1935 he won the All-India Lawn Tennis Doubles Championships with Kukuljević, after which he returned to his country to actively play until the beginning of World War II. He won one of his last titles in mixed national doubles in 1939. In the beginning of World War II he emigrated first to the United States and then to
Canada, where he died. His last known whereabouts were in
Montreal in 1980.
Footnotes
Works cited
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sefer, Franjo
1905 births
Yugoslav male tennis players
Jewish tennis players
Austrian Jews
Serbian Jews
Jewish Canadian sportspeople
Yugoslav emigrants to Canada
Tennis players from Vienna
Year of death missing
Date of birth missing