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The Four Musketeers French tennis was put onto the map by Suzanne Lenglen in the 1920s, with her unbeaten and flambouyant style at Wimbledon. Before this the annual French Championships - which originated some miles from the Roland Garros we know today - had been played on grass between 1891 and 1924. Lenglen´s success and her wave of popularity inspired young French players to greater deeds. So beginning in 1922, the first of the four young men, entered the tennis arena. As a complete quartet they would become known as the Four Musketeers.
Enter Rene Lacoste, the sublime basline strategist; Henri Cochet full of youthful enterprise who hit the ball on-the-rise; Jean Borotra, a personality with Houdini tricks; and the doubles specialist Jacques Brugnon. Overnight Frenace had the most powerful Davis Cup team, having sharpened their blades would set about to stop the American dominance under Bill Tilden. Because of this rivalry Stade Roland Garros was built to accomodate the crowd´s that surged to get tickets whenever Big Bill was in Paris. For Lacoste the youngest of the Four Musketeers his influence was perhaps the greatest and his biography has already been written. For Cochet, Brugnon and Borotra they joined Lacoste as perhaps the greatest Davis Cup quartet in history, over a period of eight years, they built on Dwight Davis´s ethos of a truly international competition where great duels would be fought. Although the Musketeers have all passed away now, their legacy and tournament records stand proud. Individually they collected a garner of career titles. As a band of four, their records are the reason why the French Open has a deep history of character and ambiance about it. The Bounding Basque from Biarritz: Jean Borotra In many ways, Jean Robert Borotra fit the image of the cosmopolitan Frenchman: a spectacular, debonair personality, a gallant kissing ladies' fingertips, a host of elegant parties aboard the Ile de France or at his fashionable residence in Paris.
Borotra was a right-hander, who at six feet one and 160lbs, was spectacular too on the tennis court in the 1920s and early '30s. He won Wimbledon in 1924 and 1926 and was runner-up in 1925 and 1927. He won the championship of France in 1924 and 1931 and the Australian title in 1928. And he was a demon in international play, one of the Four Musketeers who in 1927 broke the U.S. grip on the Davis Cup and brought it to France for the first time. Tennis inspired Borotra when he played in his first covered court championship in Paris in 1921. The "Bounding Basque" was born on the 13th August, 1898, in Arbonne, Basque Pyrenees country near Biarritz, France. He stood out from the crowd with a dramatic, aggressive style of play - and with the blue beret he always wore - Borotra became known as the "Bounding Basque from Biarritz."
His energy on the court was limitless, marked by headlong assaults and dashes for the net, both on his service and return of service, then a stampede back to retrieve lobs. No player could start faster or dash so madly. His service was not a cannonball, but it was not to be trifled with. His backhand return of service and backhand volley were vividly individual, thrusts for the kill. Borotra was named to France's Davis Cup team in 1922, and in 1923 he assembled with René Lacoste, Henri Cochet, and Jacques Brugnon, a great doubles player, to form the Four Musketeers. Not only did the French win their first Cup in 1927, but they also held it for five years thereafter. In the 1932 Challenge Round, Borotra reached heights of inspiration against the U.S. He defeated Ellsworth Vines, the winner of Wimbledon and the U.S. Championship that year.
On the final day, Borotra lost the first two sets to Wilmer Allison and with the Texan holding a fourth match point in the fifth set, Borotra's second serve appeared to be out. Allison ran forward for the handshake, thinking he had won, but the linesman insisted the serve was good and play resumed. Borotra pulled out the victory and France retained the Cup. With his dazzling performances, Borotra was popular everywhere. This included the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York, where he was in his element on the fast board courts and four times won the U.S. Indoor Championship. He was not rated quite the player that Cochet and Lacoste were, but Borotra's celebrity endured and the legs that ran like fury kept him active in tennis into his 70s as a competitor in the senior division at Wimbledon. He was among the champions honored at the 1977 Wimbledon Centenary. He was ranked in the world´s top ten for nine straight years from 1924, No 2 in 1926. The bounding Basque died on the 17th June, 1994, aged 93. Grand Slam Record Australian Singles 1928; Doubles 1928 French Singles 1931; Singles finalist 1925, 1929; Doubles 1925, 1928-1929, 1934-1936, Doubles finalist 1927, Mixed 1927, 1934 Wimbledon Singles 1924, 1926; Singles finalist 1925, 1927, 1929, 1934; Doubles 1925, 1932, 1933; Mixed 1925 U.S. Championships Singles finalist 1926; Mixed 1926 Tournament Record (inc. Davis Cup and Olympics) France Davis Cup team member 1922-1937, 1947 Italian Championships Doubles finalist 1935 Toto: Jacques Brugnon Jacques "Toto" Brugnon was the elder of France's celebrated Four Musketeers. He preceded the other three - Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet, René Lacoste - as an Internationalist, playing first on the Cup team in 1921. A master at doubles, he won Wimbledon four times, 1926 and 1928 with Cochet and 1932 and 1933 with Borotra, and appeared in three other finals. He won the French five times, three with Cochet, two with Borotra, and the Australian with Borotra, plus two French mixed for a dozen major titles.
Although doubles expertise overshadowed his singles the small - five-footer-six and a half inches in height and 139lbs - neatly mustachioed and courtly Toto had many fine moments alone. He was ranked as the world´s number ten and nine in 1926 and 1927, which were golden years for the French. They made-up 40 percent of the top ten, with his fellow Musketeers occupying places in the first four: Lacoste at number one. In his greatest singles moment, his clever volleying took him to the Wimbledon semi-finals of 1926 and was five times a match point away from joining Borotra in the Championship round. American Bob Kinsey got away from him, winning 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 9-7, slipping from 4-5, 15-40, and 5-6, 15-40 and advnatage out in the last set. Wallis Myers, the doyen connoisseur, wrote: "Brugnon is a player of rare stroke variety and touch."
He was a quarter-finalist in 1927 and stands fourth among all male Wimbledonians with 129 matches under his belt: 37-19 win-loss record in the singles, 69-16 in doubles and 23-16 in mixed. His Davis Cup career ran 11 years and he had a hand in four of the Cup triumphs as a right-handed left-court player. For a time he was a teaching professional in California. He was born May 11, 1895 in Paris and died there March 20, 1978. Grand Slam Record Australian Doubles 1928 French Doubles 1927-1928, 1930, 1932, 1934; Doubles finalist 1925-1926, 1929; Mixed 1925-1926 Wimbledon Doubles 1926, 1928, 1932-1933; Doubles finalist 1927, 1931, 1934 Tournament Record (inc. Davis Cup and Olympics) France Davis Cup team member 1921, 1923, 1927, 1930-1934 Olympic Silver medalist Doubles 1924 Italian Championships Doubles finalist 1935 Ball Boy of Lyon: Henri Cochet It could be said that Henri Jean Cochet had as pronounced a gift for playing tennis as anyone who attained world supremacy. A racket in his hand became a wand of magic, doing the impossible, most often in a position on the court considered untenable, and doing it with nonchalant ease and fluency. He took the ball early, volleys and half-volleys rippling off the strings. His overheads invariably scored, though his service seemingly was innocuous.
He developed his skills early in Lyon, France, where he was born December 14, 1901, and where his father was secretary of the tennis club. Henri worked at the club as a ball boy and practiced with his friends and sister when nobody was using the courts. In 1921 he went to Paris where he and Jean Borotra, both unknowns, reached the final of the covered-court championship. Cochet was the winner.The next year, he and Borotra played on the Davis Cup team, and in 1923 they joined with René Lacoste and Jacques Brugnon in the origin of the Four Musketeers. Cochet won 10 successive Davis Cup Challenge Round matches from the time the Musketeers wrested the Cup from the U.S. in 1927. A sensitivity of touch and timing, resulting in moderately hit strokes of genius, accounted for the success the little Frenchman, all five feet six of him and 145lbs, had in turning back the forceful hitters of the 1920s and early '30s. Following a stunning victory over Bill Tilden in the quarter-finals of the 1926 U.S. Championships, ending Tilden's six year sway, and a triumph over William Johnston in the 1927 Challenge Round, the right-handed Cochet established himself in 1928 as the world's foremost player. He was winner of the United States and French Championships that year, and was runner-up at Wimbledon, he became more of a national hero than ever, as he scored three victories in the Cup challenge round. With Lacoste's retirement from international play in 1929, Cochet was France's indispensable man. He led his country to victory over the United States in the Challenge Round in 1929, 1930 and 1932, and over the British in 1931.
"The Ballboy of Lyon," as he was called, was champion of France five times (four times after it was opened to non-French citizens in l925), and won two Wimbledons (1927, 1929) and one U.S. (1928). Probably justifiably he felt unfairly treated in trying for a second United States Championship in 1932. Darkness shut down his semifinal win over Wilmer Allison at 2-2 in sets. He had to complete that victory 7-5, the following day and then, after two hours rest, contest the final in which the weary Frenchman was no match for a fresh Ellsworth Vines 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. But for three matches as he closed out his 1927 Wimbledon Championship, as fourth seed, he was a singular Henri Houdini. No one has concluded a major in such spectacular escapes. Down two sets, he beat Frank Hunter in the quarter-finals 3-6, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4. Trailing the great second-seeded Tilden, three points from defeat at 1-5, 15-all in the third, he reeled off 17 straight points and also survived a service break to 3-2 in the fifth and won the last four games to seize their semi 3-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3. For an encore magnifique in the final, he lagged again and had to repel six match points to beat third-seeded Borotra, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5: hurdling a match point at 2-5, and five more with Borotra serving at 5-3! He was ranked the best player in the world from 1928 through to 1931 and was in the world´s top ten, ten times between 1922 and 1933. After France lost the Davis Cup to Great Britain and Fred Perry in 1933, Cochet turned professional. He did not have much of a career as a pro however, and after the war, in 1945, one of the most naturally gifted tennis players in history received reinstatement as an amateur, a role in which he had once ruled the tennis world, and continued playing well. He died April 1, 1987, in St. Ger-main-en-laye, France.
Grand Slam Record French Singles 1926, 1928, 1930, 1932; Singles finalist 1933; Doubles 1927, 1930, 1932, Doubles finalist 1925, Mixed 1928-1929; Mixed finalist 1930 Wimbledon Snigles 1927, 1929; Singles finalist 1928; Doubles 1926, 1928; Doubles finalist 1927, 1931 U.S. Championships Singles 1928; Singles finalist 1932; Mixed 1927 Tournament Record (inc. Davis Cup and Olympics) France Davis Cup team member 1922-1924, 1926-1933 Olympics Silver medalist singles 1924; Silver medalist doubles 1924 Italian Championships Singles finalist 1931
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