Karel Koželuh
Karel Koželuh ( born March 7, 1895 in Prague, † April 27, 1950 ) was a Czechoslovak champion in professional tennis, European champion in ice hockey and football player for the Austrian and Czechoslovak national team on the position of a center forward in the 1920s and 1930s.
Career as a football player
Karel Koželuh was an all-round talent and began in his youth with the exercise several sports. Before he started playing football, he also dabbled in rugby and discovered at the age of 16 years, his love for tennis. During his five brothers decided very early for the tennis game, it drew Karel time being to football, where he also repeatedly operating various sports together. As a center forward played Koželuh from 1914 for the famous Prague clubs DFC and Sparta, in the 1920s for the Wiener AC and briefly for the FK Teplice. In between, he was in 1919 as a coach at Hask Zagreb active. With the DFC Prague, who scored in that time the best football clubs in Europe, he played in friendly meetings frequently and against the strong Viennese clubs. 1917 Association of Captain Hugo Meisl appointed him the first time in the Austrian national team.
His debut for Austria gave the Prague on November 4, 1917, together with his DFC club colleagues, Karel Wilda, in the 1-2 home defeat against Hungary in Vienna. His best game for Austria he graduated in 1918 in a 5-1 win over the Swiss national team in Vienna. Already in the first half, he came again and again in front of the penalty box and headed by a nice template to Wilda also the opening goal for his team one. 80 minutes in, he still managed with the goal to make it 3-1, the crowning achievement of his performance. Further goals against Switzerland achieved Karel Wilder Jan Studnicka and Edi Bauer. The strength Koželuh and his club DFC Prague at that time also mediates the formation of the Austrians in Koželuh third international match, which was held on June 2, 1918 in Budapest, but despite the parade storm of DFC with Koželuh, Wilda, Feller and control against the then almost unbeatable Hungary lost 0-2 went. In the same year, on October 2, Karel Koželuh went to the last time for the team of Hugo Meisl and lost again against the Erzkonkurrenten Hungary with 0:3.
After the fall of the Habsburg monarchy Karel Koželuh played from 1919 to 1923 for the newly created first Czechoslovak Republic, where he also met again on other Czechoslovak players like Josef Sedlacek and Jan Vanik, which were mobilized during her career in the Austrian national team. One of his best games for the Czechoslovak national team, he graduated on June 11, 1923 in a 3-0 win against Denmark in Idrætsparken in Copenhagen. A highlight of his football career was the 5-1 victory against Italy in the same year in Prague. Great successes Karel Koželuh the basis that neither the world nor European football championships existed at that time, but celebrate with any team.
Switch to Hockey
During his time as a footballer at Sparta Prague he also graduated more and more games in the hockey team of the club and also managed in this sport to the Czechoslovakian national team. Due to his success in hockey he gave in 1923 his career as a football player on final and focused - in addition to his passion for tennis - now on the game with the puck. In the same year took Koželuh, together with the also coming from the camp of the footballer Karel Pesek - Kada, with the Czechoslovak national ice hockey team at the European championships and took his team to third place behind France and Sweden. Even better, it ran for universal sport man two years later at the European Championships of 1925, when he even became European Champion with the Czechoslovak team before Austria and Switzerland. That he was decent but not a " fellow traveler", but one of the most valuable player of his team, he proved as the winning goal in the last game against Switzerland, which had the Triumph for Czechoslovakia allows only. Despite these great successes, he finished in 1925 his short career as a hockey crack and replaced the ice hockey sticks permanently to the tennis racquet.
Career as a tennis player
Already during his time as a hockey player denied Koželuh regular tournaments as an amateur, brought it due to its wide range of activities despite his talent but to no success. After winning the European Championship in ice hockey but he focused solely on the sport of tennis and moved in the same year as one of the first tennis player ever in the professional circus. In its first year as a professional he won in 1925 as now the Thirty Years' singles at the French Pro Championships and chose also to the tennis professional world champion.
Koželuh developed into one of the best and most famous players of the first professional years in tennis and was chosen for its dance- leg movements and his speed, which he had previously trained over the years as football striker, as the Fred Astaire called on Center Court. At an Exhibition at New York's Madison Square Garden against Bill Tilden came at that time even more than 17,000 spectators. It was known in Prague in the tennis circuit for its impact strength and for his perseverance with which he especially at the power his opponents had a " defensive player " often despair.
In 1928 he moved into the final with the MFS Pro Championships in Boston (United States Pro Championship ), but lost just as in 1930 the American Vincent Richards. For the right-handed five times in a row came in the years to 1930, the defense of his title at the French Pro Championships. His last triumph in this tournament, he celebrated in 1932. During the same year, he also won the European professional tour and after 1929 for the second time the title at the U.S. Pro Championships. 1934 and 1935 he failed in the U.S. Pro only in the finals against Hans Nüsslein and the then superstar Bill Tilden. After his last final victory in this tournament against Bruce Barnes in 1937 as the most successful sports man let his (already third ) career fade away slowly. After his playing career, he served as coach including the American Don Budge, American and from 1947 to 1949 and the Czechoslovak Davis Cup team. On April 27, 1950 Karel Koželuh died in a traffic accident in the Prague district Klánovice tragically lost their lives.
Honors
In July 2006, Karel Koželuh was more than fifty years after his death, with the induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the highest accolade in the sport of tennis granted. The Czech National Museum (Narodni Muzeum ) paid tribute to the occasion in July 2006 with an exhibition of trophies won the tennis idol.
Achievements
Football
- 4 caps and 1 goal for the Austrian national football team
- 2 caps and 1 goal for the Czechoslovakian national soccer team
Hockey
- European Champion 1925
- Bronze medal at the European Championships 1923
Tennis
- 7 x French Professional Singles Champion: 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1932
- 1 x European Professional Tour Champion 1932
- 3 x U.S. Pro Singles Champion: 1929, 1932, 1937
- 1 x U.S. Pro Doubles Champion: 1929
- 1 x World Professional Tennis Title: 1925