Jean Borotra

Sporting career

It was one of the “Four Musketeers” of the French tennis which was illustrated in particular with the team of France in Coupe Davis in the Années 1920. It also gained the tournaments of Wimbledon (twice, and it was three times finalist) and of Roland-Garros, as well as the championship of Australia in 1928 at the time of a round organized by its club, Racing.

Volley-ball player of first order, with a not very orthodoxe technique but of exceptional athletic qualities, Borotra practiced all his life a tennis of attack, seizing the net on the first occasion, where it was almost impassable. Excelling on fast surfaces, it was particularly frightening on short wood covers, surface over which it gained tournaments with more than 50 years.

Political career

Member of the Left social French (PSF) and general Police chief with General Education and the Sports July 1940 at April 1942 (dismissed) in the governments of the Mode of Vichy, it then tries to gain North Africa but is stopped by the Gestapo (November 1942) and is off-set in concentration camp in Germany until in 1945.

Partisan of the practice popular of the sport and opposed to his professionalisation it will promote the sport amateur. This is why, as of October 1940 with Joseph Pascot, it makes provisions for:

to prohibit with immediate effect professionalism for 2 federations: Tennis and Fight to return to the practice of amateurs,
to prohibit within 3 year professionalism for 4 other federations: Football, Cycling, Boxing and Basque Ball,
to prohibit with immediate effect then to seize the goods of at least 5 federations: Rugby with XIII, Table tennis, Play of palm, Badminton, multi-sports FSGT
in April 1942, to prohibit and seize the goods, with immediate effect, of 2 other multi-sports federations: UFOLEP and USEP.

Commander of the Legion of honor, Military Cross 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, Medal of the escaped prisoners and medal of deportee-resistant the, it does not remain about it less one of the most faithful partisans of the Head of the French State and it chaired during many years association for the defense of the memory of the Pétain marshal. Its functions of Minister for the French State under the Occupation pushed the British authorities symbolically to prohibit to him during a few years to be invited with the Tournoi of Wimbledon.

Polytechnicien (promotion 1920), it is named Officier of the Légion of honor in 1977, and Honorary president of the FFT. He was also President of the International federation of tennis, one of the advisers of the governments gaullists in the Sixties as regards sport and became the vice-president of the sporting council of UNESCO in 1982.

Quotations

“the Pétain marshal entrusted the mission to me of making a robust youth with the well soaked heart and to reclassify our country with the row of the great sporting nations. One needs that the crowd of the passive spectators goes down from the steps where she assists each Sunday with frolicking of the high-speed motorboats and comes to take share with the plays of the stage”,… “Near each school, a playing field; in each school, a teacher” (J.Borotra, speech of nomination, in before proposes of the sport, your joy, your health, Charles Tardieu, 1940),
“I hold (…) so that each future possible professional has a trade, nonfictitious, and in order not to be likely to be a hateful example - as that was too often the case up to now - for hundreds of thousands of young participants for whom the sporting high-speed motorboats become naturally models” (Letter of J.Borotra to the president of the FF, 1940)

Prize list

Coupe Davis (of 1922 to 1947,32 disputed matches):

1927,1928,1929,1930,1931,1932

International of Simple France

: Winner in 1924,1931: Finalist in 1925 & 1929: Semi-finalist in 1926,1928 & 1930: eighth of finale in 1927 Double
: 1924,1925,1928,1929,1934,1936
Double mixed: 1924,1927,1934

Tournament of Wimbledon:

Simple: 1924,1926
Double: 1925,1932,1933
Double mixed: 1925 (with Suzanne Lenglen)

Championships of Australia:

Simple: 1928 Double
: 1928 mixed
Double: 1928

Championships of the United States:

Double mixed: 1926
(finalist in 1926)

international Championship of the veterans:

Simple: 1959 Double
: 1960 (with Quist) and 1964 (with McCall)

Championnats of France triple titrates in 1924: simple, double and double mixed

That is to say 21 titles of the large slam including 5 titles into simple.

References

J. Borotra
Basque leaping

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