Between the wars
France · born Biarritz, 1898 · died 1994 · twice Wimbledon champion
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4
Major singles titles, 1924 to 1931
18
Major titles in singles, doubles and mixed
1924
First Frenchman to win the Wimbledon singles
55
Years playing at Wimbledon, 1922 to 1977
Born at Biarritz in 1898, Borotra won four major singles titles: Wimbledon in 1924 and 1926, the Australian Championships in 1928 and the French Championships in 1931. Defeat by René Lacoste in the 1926 US final kept him from winning all four. With nine major doubles and five mixed titles he took 18 majors in all, and he played Davis Cup for France from 1921, winning the Cup six times from 1927 to 1932. He worked as a sales executive for a petrol pump company. From 1940 to 1942 he was General Commissioner for Education and Sport in the Vichy government; arrested by the Gestapo in November 1942, he was held in Germany and then at Itter Castle in Tyrol until May 1945. He died at Arbonne in 1994, aged 95.
| Major singles titles | 3: Wimbledon (1924, 1926); Australian (1928) |
|---|---|
| Major singles finals lost | 4: Wimbledon 1925, Wimbledon 1927, Wimbledon 1929, US 1926 |
| Major doubles titles | 4 doubles (Wimbledon 3, Australian 1), 3 mixed (Wimbledon 1, Australian 1, US 1) |
| Wimbledon finals | 1924: beat René Lacoste 6-1, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4. 1926: beat Howard Kinsey 8-6, 6-1, 6-3. 1927: lost to Henri Cochet from two sets up, with six match points |
| Wimbledon doubles | Champion 1925 with René Lacoste, 1932 and 1933 with Jacques Brugnon; finalist 1934 with Brugnon. 1932 final: beat Pat Hughes and Fred Perry 6-0, 4-6, 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 |
| Wimbledon mixed | 1925 with Suzanne Lenglen, beating Elizabeth Ryan and Umberto de Morpurgo |
| Australian 1928 | Doubles with Jacques Brugnon and mixed with Daphne Akhurst, alongside the singles title |
| US mixed doubles | 1926 with Elizabeth Ryan |
| Wimbledon | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1924 | Men's singles | |
| 1925 | Men's doubles | with René Lacoste |
| 1925 | Mixed doubles | with Suzanne Lenglen |
| 1926 | Men's singles | |
| 1932 | Men's doubles | with Jacques Brugnon |
| 1933 | Men's doubles | with Jacques Brugnon |
| Australian Championships | ||
| 1928 | Men's doubles | with Jacques Brugnon |
| 1928 | Mixed doubles | with Daphne Akhurst |
| 1928 | Men's singles | |
| US Championships | ||
| 1926 | Mixed doubles | with Elizabeth Ryan |
Leading grass titles only: the grass majors, tour-level grass events since 1968 and the leading grass championships before 1968. †single source; ‡ sources disagree. Roll of champions
"The god of galleries and devil of the players."
The person behind the player.
Wimbledon 1922
His first Wimbledon, in 1922, left an impression on the tournament referee, Frank Burrows, who said that "he laughed so much in the middle of his own jokes that you couldn't hear the end of them." Two years later the young Basque was the singles champion, beating his teammate René Lacoste in the final.
Source: Tennis AbstractWimbledon 1930 · Semi-final
He brought several berets to best-of-five matches and changed them at key moments. Against Bill Tilden in the semi-final he won the first set 6-0, and as the match wore on he stalled with drinks, towels and new berets in a way Tilden had never seen. It was not quite enough: Tilden took the final set 7-5 and went on to win the title.
Source: Tennis AbstractDoubles with Brugnon
Chasing a smash in a doubles match with Toto Brugnon, he ran off the court and crashed into the spectators. He picked himself up, took off his beret, bowed to the gallery and got back in time to hit a winner. A statue at Roland Garros shows him leaping for an overhead.
Source: Tennis Abstract1926
He was an amateur with a business career. After the First World War he chose business over the army and became a sales executive for a company selling petrol pumps, building its trade abroad. Combining work with tennis kept him moving: in 1926 he spent 199 nights on a boat or in a railway sleeper.
Source: Tennis AbstractItter Castle 1945
Arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 while trying to reach North Africa, he was held at Sachsenhausen and then at Itter Castle in Tyrol. In the Battle of Castle Itter in May 1945 he vaulted from the fortress and ran to a nearby town to bring reinforcements.
Source: WikipediaWimbledon 1977
He played Wimbledon over 55 years, from his first singles in 1922 to veterans' doubles and mixed doubles in 1977, when he was 78. Guinness World Records lists it as the longest Wimbledon career. At the 100th Championships in 1986 he was invited to present the trophy as the oldest living gentlemen's singles champion.
Source: Guinness World RecordsFree membership: player news, the grass court Atlas, the rankings and the grass season calendar.
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