Karel Koželuh

Koželuh became a professional tennis coach at a fairly young age and thereby made himself ineligible to play in any amateur tournaments. In 1912 he beat Roman Najuch in the Germany Pro Championships in Wiesbaden. He competed in the few professional tournaments that took place in Europe in the 1920s, contested primarily between teaching professionals. He became known in these tournaments for his speed, his endurance, and his fine groundstrokes from the baseline. Koželuh used the Continental grip, in which both the forehand and backhand are hit with the same grip, and preferred to play as much as ten feet behind the baseline, returning balls endlessly to the other court, almost never advancing to the net. Seldom hitting the ball very hard, he was content to outrun and outlast his opponents in exhausting matches of attrition. He won the most prestigious of these European tournaments, the Bristol Cup, played in Beaulieu, France, six times.

He was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 145 pounds. The American tennis player Vinnie Richards said he was "seamy-faced, cadaverous-looking and, in general, resembled a cigar-store Indian."

When a U.S. professional tour was started, Koželuh was one of the first players to join it, being signed up for it by Vinnie Richards, who made a special trip to Europe for that purpose. In 1928, his first year in the U.S. as a professional, he beat Richards 15 matches to 5. In the following years Koželuh continued to dominate Richards, in 1929 beating him 5 times to 2 and in 1930 4 times to 2. After watching one of their lengthy matches, a tennis expert of the time, J. Parmly Paret, wrote in American Lawn Tennis, that Koželuh had "the most perfect defense that I have seen... But defense alone does not make a champion." He went on to say that either Henri Cochet or Bill Tilden at their best would be able to defeat Koželuh by attacking him consistently from the net. Koželuh defended his somewhat tedious baseline style by saying, "Why should I change my style when it is so successful?"[4]

Bill Tilden, the greatest player of the 1920s, turned professional at the end of 1930 and organized a tour with himself to play the headline match against Koželuh. Their first encounter was on 18 February 1931 before 14,000 spectators in Madison Square Garden in New York. Tilden won three straight sets in only 65 minutes, attacking from both the baseline and the net and overwhelming Koželuh with his power. Tilden won the next eight matches as well, all of them played indoors on a canvas surface that seldom had enough room for Koželuh to play his normal game far behind the baseline. Koželuh finally won their tenth match on an outdoor concrete court at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. In the course of the year, both in the United States and in Europe, the Czech eventually beat Tilden 17 times while losing 50 matches to him. Koželuh had firmly established himself as one of the half-dozen best players in the world.

Koželuh had already beaten Vinnie Richards to win the United States Pro Championship in 1929. He went on to win the title again in 1932, defeating the German Hans Nüsslein, and in 1937,[5] beating the American Bruce Barnes at The Greenbrier in West Virginia at the age of 42. With this win, he became the oldest winner of a major professional singles tournament. In the first round at the Greenbrier tournament in 1938 (not classed as the US Pro that year), Koželuh faced Greenbrier golf professional Sam Snead, beating him in three straight sets.[6] Koželuh was the losing finalist at the US Pro in 1928, 1930, 1934 and 1935. Koželuh was a six-time winner of the Bristol Cup in Menton, France, which was the most prestigious professional title in the world in the 1920s. He also won the World Pro tournament in Deauville, France, in 1925. Another major title for Koželuh was the French Professional Championship of 1930.

Karel Koželuh was the older brother of the tennis player Jan Koželuh. Jan was ranked as high as the world number 10 amateur in 1927.[7] Karel was ranked joint world number 1 professional in 1927 by Ray Bowers (with Richards)[8] and number 1 alone in 1928 by Bowers[8] and in 1929 by Bowers,[9] American Lawn Tennis,[10] and Bill Tilden.[11]

Koželuh was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 2006.