Jaroslav Drobný

For the Czech footballer, see Jaroslav Drobný (footballer).

Jaroslav Drobný

File:Drobny.jpg
Medal record
Men’s ice hockey
Olympic Games
	1948	Team Competition
World Championships
	1947	Team Competition

Jaroslav Drobný (12 October 1921 in Prague, Czechoslovakia – 13 September 2001 in London, United Kingdom) was an amateur tennis champion as well as being an ice hockey player for the Czechoslovakian national team. He left Czechoslovakia in 1949 and travelled as an Egyptian citizen before becoming a citizen of Great Britain in 1959, where he died in 2001.

He was a silver medalist with the Czechoslovakian 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 Czechoslovakian national ice hockey team which won the gold medals at the 1947 World Ice Hockey Championships 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 has been inducted in the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame [1].

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 has refused, preferring to remain playing amateur 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 for the first time on 27 January 1965.

As a tennis player, Drobný was good enough as early as 1946 to be able to beat Jack Kramer in the round of 16 at Wimbledon before losing in the semi-finals. 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. 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 Sir Norman Brookes. 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 was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1983. He's the only person to win the rare combination of Wimbledon in tennis and a world championship title in ice hockey.

File:Jaroslav Drobný's plaque in the Tennis Hall of Fame.jpg

Jaroslav Drobný's plaque in the International Tennis Hall of Fame

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 World II, he started at Wimbledon yet again as Czechoslovakian but he has chosen to defect the communist regime in 1949 - he has left Czechoslovakia for good on 11 July 1949.

Becoming stateless, Drobný attempted to gain Swiss, US, and Australian papers until finally Egypt offered him citizenship and so he started in Wimbledon for Egypt from 1950 through 1959, including his title winning run in 1954. He is the only Egyptian citizen to ever 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, he was representing his new homeland, Great Britain.

During his amateur career, Drobný won over 130 singles titles, and was world ranked in the top 10 from 1946-55.

After the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, Drobný was 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 free to travel freely to tournaments and he grew dissatisfied with the new regime. That has ultimately escalated in his defection from his native land.

Drobný has defected Czechoslovakia together with a fellow Czech Davis Cup player Vladimír Černík while playing at a tennis tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland in the Summer of 1949. Drobný and Černík were the core of the Czechoslovakian 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.

In total, Drobný started in Wimbledon 17 times, always sporting his trademark tinted prescription glasses as an old hockey injury affected his eyesight. Drobný is the only male tennis player who ever won 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.

In 1955, Jaroslav Drobný published his autobiography titled Champion in Exile. He was married to Rita Anderson Jarvis, onetime English tournament player. He died in Tooting, London.

Grand Slam record

Australian Championships

• Men's Doubles runner-up: 1950

French Championships

• Singles champion: 1951, 1952
• Singles runner-up: 1946, 1948, 1950
• Men's Doubles champion: 1948
• Men's Doubles runner-up: 1950
• Mixed Doubles champion: 1948

Wimbledon

• Singles champion: 1954
• Singles runner-up: 1949, 1952
• Men's Doubles runner-up: 1951

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 8 (3 titles, 5 runner-ups)

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

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

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

Mixed Doubles: 1 (1 title)

Outcome	Year	Championship	Surface	Partner	Opponents in the final	Score in the final
Winner	1948	French Championships	Clay	Patricia Canning Todd	Doris Hart Frank Sedgman	6–3, 3–6, 6–3

In popular culture

Ivan Blatný wrote a poem called Wimbledon which addresses Drobný.

References

• 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.

• Jaroslav Drobný: Champion in Exile, published 1955 by Hodder and Stoughton Limited, London.