Jaroslav Drobný

Jaroslav Drobný (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjaroslav ˈdrobniː]; 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 1951, he became the first and, to date, only Egyptian to win the French Open, while doing likewise at the Wimbledon Championships in 1954. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1983. He played internationally for the Czechoslovakia men's national ice hockey team, and was inducted in the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame.

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. Drobný 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. 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 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, 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.

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 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 15 July 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 announced on 24 July 1959 that he had been 'naturalised' on 8 May the same year.