The Tennis 128: No. 113, Karel Koželuh

In 2022, I’m counting down the 128 best players of the last century. With luck, we’ll get to #1 in December. Enjoy!

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Karel Koželuh [CZE]
Born: 7 March 1895
Died: 27 April 1950
Career: 1911-45
Plays: Right-handed (one-handed backhand)
Peak rank: 1 (1929, among professionals)
Major singles titles: 0 (4 pro majors)
Total singles titles: 15 (and probably many more)
 

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This list is premised on the idea that you can measure players against their eras with reasonable accuracy. That isn’t the only factor that goes into a ranking–some eras are stronger than others. But certain men and women earned their status as legends because they so clearly dominated their peers.

What if they weren’t allowed to play against the best of their contemporaries? While it’s common to hear the term “Open Era,” it’s easy forget exactly what it means. Before 1968, the vast majority of tournaments were, in one sense or another, closed. Until the 1950s, almost all events in the United States were white-only. Tournaments on the French Riviera circuit were often limited to members of the hosting club, with temporary membership passes granted to any member of the social or tennis-playing elite.

And then there’s the whole basis of the “open tennis” debate: the long-lasting proscription against professionals. The men who ran international tennis considered it a game for amateurs, and a global army of bureaucrats carefully policed the ranks, ensuring that it stayed that way.

The strangest–and most infuriating–facet of this history is that a huge fraction of the players who either elected to turn professional or were kicked out of the amateur ranks never played matches for money. No, their crime was that they taught tennis and got paid for it.

Some traditionalists could speak eloquently about keeping the game free of filthy lucre, but however pure their rhetoric, the point was always exclusion. Players without family wealth who needed to earn a living were welcome–sort of–but only if they could do so in a respectable pursuit like business. Someone who could pay the bills only with their tennis racket didn’t pass the upper-class entrance exam.

This is all a long-winded way of explaining why you probably haven’t heard of Karel Koželuh.

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Koželuh was born in Prague in 1895, and he didn’t take up tennis until he was 16. He was already competing in just about every other sport. Before he made his name as a tennis star, he played international ice hockey and soccer–the latter for both Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Early on, he took a job as a tennis teaching pro, thus killing any shot at a sparkling career on the amateur circuit. Before World War I, professional tournaments occasionally took place, but they were rare and little heralded. The gatherings of coaches that resulted fell far short of what we now think of as professional tennis.

The situation didn’t change immediately after the war, either. Two things finally catapulted Koželuh into the international tennis world. First, he traveled to the Riviera, where well-heeled holidaymakers wanted to play tennis and sought out quality instruction. Second, promoter extraordinaire C.C. Pyle turned his attention to the sport and essentially invented marquee pay-for-play tennis.

Pyle convinced six-time Wimbledon champion Suzanne Lenglen to turn pro in 1926. Fans in Britain and the United States flocked to see her, and for the first time, professional tennis was played in front of thousands of fans. Lenglen didn’t last on the barnstorming circuit, and Pyle quickly moved on to other interests. But their short collaboration demonstrated that a market existed. Without an impressive amateur resume, Koželuh could never be a headlining superstar like Lenglen was, but every star needed a foil with enough skill to keep things interesting. That role was tailor-made for the Czech.

Remember the timeline. Opportunity finally arrived for Koželuh in 1928, when he was 33 years old.

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Koželuh caught the eye of Bill Tilden in 1927, and his results in professional tournaments in France sealed his reputation as the best pro player in Europe. In 1928, he would take on the baby-faced American Vinnie Richards, a former Tilden protege and 1924 Olympic gold medalist who had been part of C.C. Pyle’s Lenglen tour.

Richards never reached a major final as an amateur, but thanks to a glittering junior career, a closet full of doubles trophies, and a strong all-around game, he was considered among the best players of his era. In 1927, he won the first US Pro championships, a tournament initially devised by Pyle (though never run by him) to provide a showcase for pay-for-play competition on par with the great amateur tournaments.

The Koželuh-Richards competition began with a three-match series, played in Prague, London, and New York, pitting the strongest European pro against the reigining US champ. Koželuh won all three, demonstrating a total mastery of clay-court tennis. Ray Bowers, whose book Forgotten Victories is an essential guide to this era, describes the Czech’s style of play:

Koželuh was master of the defensive game, staged from well behind the baseline using a single grip both forehand and backhand. If his opponent also stayed deep, Koželuh was usually content to deliver softish, safe shots endlessly, waiting for his opponent’s eventual mistake. His superb court speed made an opponent’s winner from the baseline achievable only at high risk. An opponent at net could expect no easy volley opportunities, and if the attacker’s approach shot was weak Koželuh’s accuracy in delivering lobs and passing shots would probably prevail.

On the flip side, his footwork was sometimes sloppy, and he hit most of his shots from the same upright position. It didn’t matter, because he was so blindingly fast. On a clay court, it was near impossible to hit one past him.

Unfortunately for someone looking to make it big in front of American audiences, clay courts were not as common as they were in Europe. The US Pro was played on grass, and the one-night stands that made up so much of professional tennis were often played indoors, on temporary courts of canvas stretched over cork.

Koželuh didn’t care for either surface, especially when a drizzle made the Forest Hills turf courts even slipperier during his 1928 US Pro final against Richards. The American defended his title there, but over the course of their entire series, the Czech proved himself the world’s strongest professional. He won 15 of 20 matches against Richards in 1928, only a few of them on clay.

For the first time, the 33-year-old Koželuh could get some idea of how he stacked up against the world’s best amateurs, as Richards had been one of the stronger members of that tribe only two years earlier. In a combined ranking of amateurs and pros for 1928, Bowers places the Czech fourth, behind Tilden, René Lacoste, and Henri Cochet. Such a placement doesn’t shed much light on the previous 15 years of Koželuh’s career, but a spot in the top four at a very strong moment in men’s tennis history is a good place to start.

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Koželuh came back the next year and got his revenge on Richards at the 1929 US Pro, outlasting the American in a five-set final. He won five of the seven matches they played that season, inspiring one American journalist to claim that his defense would be too strong for Lacoste, the previous year’s Wimbledon champion.

Much of the money in professional tennis was concentrated in the States, so the Czech became a regular feature of the American pro circuit. He would ultimately reach the final of the US Pro seven times, winning in 1929, 1932, and 1937*, when he was 42 years old. In 1932, he held off the rising German star Hans Nüsslein in straight sets. Nüsslein, who like Koželuh did some coaching as a youngster and was never welcome in the amateur ranks, was 15 years his junior.

* The 1937 title came against Texan Bruce Barnes, who is primarily known for one of tennis’s best one-liners. After a practice session with Ellsworth Vines in 1934: “It’s hit and miss with us. When he hits, I miss.”

By then, the pro game had received a big boost. Koželuh and Richards were recognized experts, but they paled–probably in skill and definitely in box-office appeal–to Tilden, Lacoste, and Cochet, the biggest stars of the amateur game. At the end of 1930, Tilden turned pro.

Big Bill’s foil for his first pro tour would be none other than Karel Koželuh. Finally, in 1931, with both men north of 35, the Czech could test himself against the best in the world. The pair would kick off their rivalry with a nine-match series, opening at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The crowds loved it, but Koželuh did not. Tilden beat him in 65 minutes at MSG, and the Czech didn’t win a set in their first two matches. Only in the tour’s final stop, in Omaha, did Koželuh make things interesting, pushing Tilden all the way to 10-8 in the final set. Big Bill was simply too good.

At least, Tilden was too good on indoor canvas courts. Since his first trip to the States in 1928, Koželuh had gotten plenty of practice on the surface, but he could only do so much to adapt his patient, defensive game to conditions that favored net-rushing and cannonball serves. The pair played another series in California, many of them on outdoor, asphalt courts. With more room behind the baseline to maneuver and the occasional gust of wind complicating Tilden’s overheads, Koželuh won five of eight matches on the more favorable surface.

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Unfortunately for the Czech, professional tennis in the United States would remain primarily an indoor and grass-court game. The US Pro was the exception, switching surfaces until finally settling on hard courts in the mid-1950s. Koželuh’s titles in 1932 and 1937 came on clay, though he also lost finals on dirt to Nüsslein in 1934 and Tilden in 1935.

Koželuh’s legacy, then, is based on a few years of top-level play and a long list of what-ifs. What if he had evaded the amateur tennis police as a young coach? There were prominent clay-court events for amateurs all over Europe during his prime, and he would have been a top contender for any of them. What if pro tennis’s center of gravity had been on the Continent, instead of across the Atlantic? Then many more of his battles with Richards and Tilden would’ve taken place on clay.

Does Karel Koželuh’s documented match record justify his position among the top 128 players of all time? I have no clue. I had to throw away the algorithm for this one. What is clear is that his ability–which we can only judge from his performance as a 30-something–ranked among the best players of his era. Had he offered his coaching services for free and competed in the amateur ranks, the question wouldn’t be whether he belonged on this list. You’d be asking why on earth I placed him so low.