Vladimír Černík (9 July 1917 – 2 April 2002) was a

Czechoslovakian , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

tennis player. He was a mainstay of his country's Davis Cup team in the years immediately following World War II, helping them reach the Inter-Zonal final in successive years in 1947 and 1948, though they fell to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

on both occasions. His biggest individual tournament victories in singles were his two

Swiss International Championships The Swiss International Championships also called the International Swiss Championships or Championship of Switzerland or simply Swiss Championships was a combined men's and women's clay court tennis tournament established by the Swiss Lawn Tennis ...

in 1946 and 1950. In July 1949, he and Davis Cup team-mate

Jaroslav Drobný Jaroslav Drobný (; 12 October 1921 – 13 September 2001) was a World No. 1 amateur tennis and ice hockey champion. He left Czechoslovakia in 1949 and travelled as an Egyptian citizen before becoming a citizen of the United Kingdom in 1959, w ...

defected while attending that year's Swiss Championships in Gstaad. He continued to tour the amateur tennis circuit thereafter, first with Swiss papers until in 1950 he and Drobny were both granted Egyptian citizenship. Subsequently Černík was able to settle in the United States, and worked for two years as the Head Coach of the

Tar Heels Tar Heel is a nickname applied to the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is also the nickname of the University of North Carolina athletic teams, students, alumni, and fans. The origins of the Tar Heel nickname trace back to North Carolina's promi ...

, the men's tennis programme at the University of North Carolina. In later life Černík retired to Palm Beach, Florida, where he was the Tennis Professional at the Everglades Club. He died in 2002.

Performance timeline

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External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cernik, Vladimir 1917 births 2002 deaths Czech male tennis players Czechoslovak defectors Czechoslovak male tennis players People from Roudnice nad Labem Sportspeople from the Ústí nad Labem Region