(12 October 2021 - 13 September 2001 London), was an amateur tennis and ice hockey player of Czechoslovak origin.
Ice hockey: He was an ice hockey player between 1936 and 1949 with the club I. ČLTK Praha. He also played for the Czechoslovak national team and participated in the 1939 World Championship. He helped the team win its first gold medal at the 1947 World Championship in Prague. He also competed at the 1948 Winter Olympics, where the Czechoslovaks won silver. He was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2010, he was inducted into the Czech Hockey Hall of Fame.
Tennis: He won Wimbledon in 1954 and the French Open in 1951 and 1952.
He was an Egyptian citizen from 1949 to 1959, gained British citizenship in 1959 and died in the United Kingdom, where he was married, in 2001.
He played at Wimbledon under four different national identities. In 1938, at the age of 16, he played for his native Czechoslovakia for the first time. A year later, after the German invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia, he officially represented the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. After World War II, he played at Wimbledon again as a Czechoslovak citizen. After the Communist takeover in 1948, he emigrated on 11 July 1949 when he and Černík disobeyed orders to return immediately from a tournament in Gstaad. He tried unsuccessfully to obtain citizenship of Switzerland, the United States and Australia after his visa was forfeited, and without a passport. It was not until King Farouk I of Egypt invited him to a tournament in Alexandria, which he won. Drobny began coaching the king's daughter and received Egyptian citizenship. From 1950 to 1959 he represented Egypt, for whom he won the Wimbledon trophy in 1954. He was the only Egyptian citizen to win a tennis Grand Slam. By his last appearance at Wimbledon in 1960, at the age of 38, he was already playing for the United Kingdom.
In 1983, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. On 14 June 2012, a commemorative plaque was unveiled in Prague's Štvanice in the presence of the President of the Republic, Václav Klaus.
According to the Tennis Base database, after Rod Laver's record 200 trophies, he won the second highest number of 147 singles titles in the history of men's tennis, and with 203 finals, he is ranked fourth behind Laver, Rosewall and Ritchie. The International Tennis Hall of Fame has awarded him 133 singles titles.
In 1948, he won the doubles title at Rolang Garros with Lenart Bergelin, later Björn Borg's coach.
His life story would undoubtedly interest the public more than a film about Emil Zátopek, without wishing to diminish it. A film about Jaroslav Drobny would certainly have more chances of winning an Oscar than one about Emil Zátopek. The way a society treats its famous natives who have made us famous all over the world, even though they have not lived in their native country for most of their lives, speaks volumes about its moral state. Will CT commemorate our famous native today? I'll call it just in case - nothing about Jaroslav Drobny was broadcast on Czech television on the 100th anniversary of his birth!
I also remember the hockey player Vladimír Zábrodský, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in two years. He was also a tennis player - and a famous hockey player. I won't forget when he was given a rousing welcome at the O2 Arena at the last World Hockey Championship in Prague in 2015, when he was 92 years old, and when all the spectators expected him to speak (he visibly expected it), he was given an award, but not the microphone...
At the time I would have shot for this incredible amorality when I was so looking forward to his words! He was in good physical and mental condition into old age. Surely, as a man experienced in life, he would have said it all in a few sentences. Bohemian smallness, provinciality, or intention...?
Let us also remember the fate of tennis and hockey player Karel Koželuh, who mysteriously died in 1950, figure skater Aja Vrzáňová, gymnast Věra Čáslavská, latter exiles tennis players Martina Navrátilová, Ivan Lendl and many other famous athletes, actors, scientists, businessmen and politicians whose lives were marked by the criminal communist regime. Honour their memory and legacy. Only with people of such character and ability can a morally and economically advanced society and country be built.
Jan Šinágl, 20.10.2021 (with the help of Wikipedia)
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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