Dragutin Mitić ( sh-Cyrl, Драгутин Митић, ; 16 September 1917 – 27 August 1986) was a
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
player from
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
. He defected to the West in 1952 and afterwards lived in the United States.
Early life and family
Dragutin Mitić was born in
Zagreb
Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...
on 16 September 1917. He was nicknamed ''Dragec''. His first tennis performance was an instant success. In 1932 he played at the national junior championships and won. At eighteen, he competed in
Bled
Bled (; german: Veldes,''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 146. in older sources also ''Feldes'') is a town on Lake Bled in the Upper C ...
and upset Czechoslovakian
Josef Caska with a 13:11, 6:1 score, and brought home the mixed doubles with
Hella Kovač. He made his Davis Cup debut in 1936. That same year he traveled to
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
and, although he didn't return with any major result, gained international experience.
Tennis career
Mitić played tennis for Zagreb clubs ''Akademski teniski klub'' ATK, between 1935 and 1940, ''Slavija'' in 1946, ''Dinamo'' in 1947–48, ''Naprijed'' in 1949, and ZTK in 1951. He played for the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia Davis Cup team, first at the
International Lawn Tennis Challenge
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...
, and later the
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...
, from 1936 to 1951.
Mitić's breakthrough year was in 1938 with back-to-back victories over well-established names such as Czechoslovakian
Roderich Menzel
Roderich Ferdinand Ottomar Menzel (; 13 April 1907 – 17 October 1987) was a Czech-German amateur tennis player and, after his active career, a writer.
Birth
Roderich Menzel was born in Reichenberg in Bohemia (today Liberec in the Czech Republi ...
, French
Christian Boussus
Christian Boussus (5 March 1908 – August 2003) was a left-handed French tennis player who found success in the 1920s and 1930s.
Tennis career
He started playing amateur tennis in the late 1920s by entering one of his first tournaments at the ...
, and
Ignacy Tłoczyński
Ignacy Tłoczyński (; 14 July 1911 – 25 December 2000) was a Polish tennis player, coach and World War II veteran.
Tłoczyński participated in 10 Davis Cup ties for Poland from 1930–1939, posting a 23–8 record in singles and a 3–9 r ...
in matches in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
,
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
, and Beaulieu, respectively. In
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
, he lost to
Kho Sin-Kie
Kho Sin-Khie (, ; September 2, 1912 – January 31, 1947) was an Indonesian-born tennis player who represented the Republic of China in the Davis Cup. He was from the Peranakan Chinese ethnic group. He was the first Chinese player ever to win ...
. He also did well in two big tournaments. At the
1938 Wimbledon Championships – Men's singles he dropped out the Australian
Mervyn Weston in four sets, then Argentine
Alejo Russell
Alejo Domingo Russell (9 September 1916 – 25 May 1977) was an Argentine tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each playe ...
in five, and Brazilian
Alcides Procopio in three, losing in the fourth round to
Max Ellmer
Max Ellmer (1909 – 1984) was a Swiss tennis player in the years before and after World War 2. Ellmer had a powerful backhand and good footwork. He played Davis Cup for Switzerland from 1933 to 1938. He won the Swiss Championships four times ...
. In the
Roland Garros he advanced one more round into the quarterfinals, but there won only one game against Menzel. He booked his first and only
Grand Slam
Grand Slam most often refers to:
* Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves
Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to:
Games and sports
* Grand slam, winning category te ...
title (as it was called in the Open era) in the mixed doubles, where he and
Simonne Mathieu rebounded from a one-set disadvantage against
Nancye Wynne Bolton
Nancye Wynne Bolton (née Wynne; 2 December 1916 – 9 November 2001) was a tennis player from Australia. She won the women's singles title six times at the Australian Championships, third only to Margaret Court's and Serena Williams' 11 and 7 ...
and Boussus to achieve their biggest feat.
In 1939 Mitić made a name for himself at the Riviera tournaments. In
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
he beat
Adam Baworowski, and in
Bordighera
Bordighera (; lij, A Bordighea, locally ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Imperia, Liguria (Italy).
Geography
Bordighera is located from the land border between Italy and France, and it is possible to see the French coast with a nak ...
, the home favorite
Giorgio de Stefani, claiming the title in both tournaments. In Cairo he won the mixed doubles with his partner,
Billie Yorke. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
he won the first post-war tournament in Budapest, the
Hungarian Tennis Championships, from
József Asbóth
József Asbóth (; 18 September 1917 – 22 September 1986) was a Hungarian tennis player. Born to a family of railway workers, he is best remembered for being the first Hungarian and first player from Eastern Europe to win a Grand Slam single ...
, along with the doubles with partner
Josip Pallada, and the mixed doubles. He also won five consecutive singles titles in the Yugoslavian Nationals from 1946 to 1950.
In 1947 Mitić repeated his Hungarian success and became a two-time singles champion. In 1948 he won the Czechoslovakia International doubles tournament with Palada. In 1950 he was crowned Indian champion in the mixed doubles category, teaming with
Patricia Canning Todd.
Mitić
defected
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
to the
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
together with
Milan Branović while competing at the 1952
Italian International Championships.
After his defection in 1952, he lived in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where he opened a tennis center.
Playing style
According to tennis expert Predrag Briksi: "Mitić had a world-class backhand, sharp and accurate, coherent and well coordinated. He had a very good service and refined volley, strong smash, and the only weak point in his refined game was his above-average forehand shot. The Mitić forehand was slightly weaker because it was regularly struck with the weight of the body on the 'wrong foot'. His on-court reach showed vulnerability when it came to movement. He covered a great range from right to the left side, but he was a little slower relative to his front-back reach. He was excellent at baseline, and just as good at the net when he went volleying".
Grand Slam finals
Mixed doubles: 1 (1 title)
Footnotes
Sources
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitic, Dragutin
1917 births
1986 deaths
Croatian male tennis players
French Championships (tennis) champions
Tennis players from Zagreb
Yugoslav defectors
Yugoslav male tennis players
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in mixed doubles