| He was not particularly athletic in build or in his movements, and as a reserved and rather shy youth he seemed to be more fitted for the world of education, law or medicine than for athletic achievement But Jean René Lacoste, known as the Crocodile, would win Wimbledon and the U.S. twice, the French thrice and become a member of the Four Musketeers, the scourges of the tennis world in the 1920s. He was in the World Top Ten six straight years from 1324, No. 1 in 1926-27.
Lacoste was a self-made champion, a player who won world renown through sheer hard work and devoted application rather than through the benefit of natural talent. Born in Paris, July 2, 1904, he did not go onto a court until he was 15 years old, while on a trip with his father to England. His development after that was slow.
His father, a wealthy manufacturer of automobiles, agreed to his son's devoting himself to tennis, but with the understanding that he must set himself the task of becoming a world champion and achieve his goal within five years or drop it.
In his determination to excel, Lacoste trained faithfully and read and observed everything, even keeping a notebook on the strengths and weaknesses of his contemporaries. He became a master of the backcourt game, choosing to maintain a length of inexorable pressure to exact the error or the opening for the finishing shot, and repelling the volleyer with passing shots and lobs.
In recognition of his growing success, he was selected in 1923 as the fourth Musketeer to blend with Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon and Henri Cochet in the alliance that would bring France the Davis Cup, and the following year he was in his first major final, Wimbledon, only to lose to Borotra, 6-4 in the fifth. But in 1925 he came back to win the Big W in a four-set rematch, and took it for a second time in 1928 over Cochet. Also in 1925 Lacoste won the French, over Borotra, whom he also beat in a memorable rainy 1929 final, 6-3, 2-6, 6-0, 2-6, 8-6.
As the French drew closer to the Cup, losing the challenge round to the U.S., 4-1, in 1926, Lacoste made the breakthrough for team morale, beating Tilden, 4-6, 6-4, 8-6, 8-6, Big Bill's first Cup loss after 16 wins. The year 1927 was momentous, enclosing three victories over Tilden: the first a two-match-points-saving French final, 6-4, 4-6, 5-7, 6-3, 11-9, a challenge round-squaring (2-2), 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 triumph as the French grabbed the Cup, the U.S. final.
Perhaps the U.S. was the most stirring, where the efficiency of his backcourt game thwarted the great one. The 34-year-old Tilden attacked for close to two hours and volleyed far more than was his custom, but despite efforts that brought him to the point of exhaustion, he could not win a set. The sphinx-like Lacoste, 22, kept the ball going back the full length of the court with the inevitability of fate and hardly an inexcusable error. The score of the fabulous match was 11-9, 6-3, 11-9, enabling Lacoste to retain the U.S. title he had won the previous year against Borotra.
In 1928 Lacoste lost the opener in the Davis Cup to Tilden and it marked the Frenchman's last appearance in international team matches, owing to his health. After winning the French title in 1929, he withdrew from competition, having more than fulfilled the goal he once never seemed suited for--that of a tennis champion.
He captained the victorious French Davis Cup teams of 1931-32. Ever seeking to improve playing conditions, he designed the first shirts specifically for tennis, the short-sleeved cotton polo so common now, and put his familiar trademark, a crocodile, on the breast, starting the flood of apparel logos. Lacoste also developed the split-shaft steel racket that appeared in 1967 as the Wilson T2000, used so successfully for years by Jimmy Connors.
His wife, Simone Thion de la Chaume, was a French amateur golf champion, and his daughter, Catherine Lacoste, won the U.S. Open golf in 1967. He died October 12, 1996, in St. Jean-de-Luz, France. |
France