The Four Musketeers
|
|
The Four Musketeers were four tennis players from France, given their name from the Alexandre Dumas story The Three Musketeers. They dominated the game of tennis in the late 1920s and early 1930s, winning numerous Grand Slam titles. They also led France to six straight Davis Cup wins, 1927 through 1932, in the days in which Cup matches had national importance equivalent to today's World Cup finals.
The Musketeers were:
- Jean Borotra (1898-1994)
- Jacques Brugnon (1895-1978)
- Henri Cochet (1901-1987)
- René Lacoste (1904-1996)
Brugnon was primarily a doubles specialist, but the other three, Borotra, Cochet, and Lacoste, won many singles titles. Between them, they won 3 United States Championships at Forest Hills, 6 consecutive Wimbledon titles from 1924 through 1929, and 10 titles in 11 years at the French Championships, 1922 through 1932 (until 1930, though, the tournament was only open to French nationals). During this time the only player to challenge their dominance was the great American player Bill Tilden. Cochet and Lacoste had occasional victories over Tilden in 1926 and 1927 but Tilden was the undisputed number-one player in the world from 1920 until 1928, when Cochet took over that position. The Musketeers were finally eclipsed by the arrival of Ellsworth Vines, Fred Perry, Jack Crawford, and Don Budge on the international tennis scene.
The four men were national icons in France and all of them lived to be at least 83 years old, basking in glory for many years after their retirement from tennis.
The four of them were simulanteously inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1976.