page_title: Henri Cochet
section_title: 1929
hierarchical_section_title: Henri Cochet / Tennis career / First Amateur career (1922-1933) / 1929
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Um den Kampf des Davis-Pokals! Die amerikanische Tennismannschaft von links nach rechts: Hunter, Tilden, Allison, van Ryn. auf dem Tennisplatz Rot-Weiss in Berlin-Grunewald.
context_page_description: Henri Jean Cochet was a French tennis player. He was a world No. 1 ranked player, and a member of the famous "Four Musketeers" from France who dominated tennis in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
  Born in Villeurbanne, Rhône, Cochet won a total 22 Majors including seven Grand Slam singles, five doubles and three mixed doubles. In addition he won three singles, two doubles and one mixed doubles ILTF majors. He also won one professional Major in singles. During his major career he won singles and doubles titles on three different surfaces: clay, grass and wood. He was ranked as world No. 1 player for four consecutive years, 1928 through 1931 by A. Wallis Myers. Cochet turned professional in 1933, but after a less than stellar pro career he was reinstated as an amateur after the end of World War II in 1945.
  The Four Musketeers were inducted simultaneously into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1976. Cochet died in 1987 in Paris at age 85.
context_section_description: The 1929 season did not begin as flawless as the previous one; on 20 January Jean Borotra beat Cochet in their first ever Belgian Covered Courts tournament final, which took five sets to decide. Cochet won the Gallia tournament for the fourth time and the Monte Carlo Cup for the second time, eliminating Italian aces Giorgio de Stefani in the semi-final and Umberto de Morpurgo for the former championships and de Morpurgo again for the latter. He also defended his Monaco mixed title for the first time and the Butler Cup for the third. But he lost in Roubaix and in Biarritz to Christian Boussus (5th in French rankings) and Pierre Henri Landry (7th in French rankings) respectively, which raised concerns and let to newspaper speculation about a loss of form. In Berlin at the Rot-Weiss Club Tournament he defeated Roderich Menzel in the singles event and clinched the doubles with Jacques Brugnon. His only loss came in the mixed doubles with Cilly Aussem against teammate Brugnon and Bobby Heine, which went to three sets. He successfully defended the Austrian championships against Franz Wilhelm Matejka and claimed the doubles with Roger Danet. He claimed the Czechoslovakian Championships from fellow countryman Christian Boussus. They joined forces and together won the doubles.
  In May at the 34th French Championships the men's doubles tournament took place first. With Lacoste – Borotra's victory over Tilden – Hunter and Cochet – Brugnon's easy win over Gregory – Collins in the semi-finals secured the Four Musketeers their third doubles face-to-face final. Unfortunately for Cochet in the fifth set they were serving for the match and had thirty-love in the game, when Brugnon missed an easy ball when three match points were at stake. Lacoste and Borotra revived from that moment on and closed out the final set 8–6. In singles he was put out of the contest by Borotra in the semi-finals and thus was unable to retain his title. However, Cochet did not leave without a trophy as the mixed championship was earned by him and Eileen Bennett Whittingstall.
  Cochet then set out for an exhibition tour through central Europe in June, playing in Budapest, Belgrade and Vienna.
  Cochet was seeded first at the 1929 Wimbledon Championships. He marched through the earlier rounds, having only one five-set match against Irish champion George Lyttleton-Rogers. In the quarterfinals he beat Hendrik Timmer in straights, then Bill Tilden in the semi-finals also in straights and second seeded compatriot Jean Borotra for the championship in his third straight sets victory in a row. Despite this he lost 63 games throughout the tournament, which was the most among the seeded players (third-seeded semi-finalist Tilden only lost 27). In doubles he reached the quarterfinals with Jacques Brugnon but was beaten by Wilmer Allison and John Van Ryn, who later became champions. In the mixed doubles draw the titleholders Cochet and Eileen Bennett Whittingstall lost to eventual runners-up Joan Fry and Ian Collins in three sets. The singles victory marked the sixth straight time that a French player won Wimbledon and the fifth time that the final was contested between two Frenchmen, counting from the first French victory in 1924. A couple of days later in the Regent's Park the top Wimbledon players participated in an exhibition event to raise funds for children of the British war cripples.
  In July the French team was challenged by the United States team in the 1929 Davis Cup three-day final. On 26 July 12,000 people watched the first day of the encounter at the Roland Garros stadium. The French squad took the lead when Borotra beat George Lott. The second match was scheduled between Cochet and Tilden. The American started off poorly; he was not able to win one single point in the first game, hit many unforced errors, especially in the longer rallies, and Cochet pulled away and took the set. In the second Tilden forced a backhand game, but it did not pay off, and he lost that set as well, six games to one. Tilden relied on his serves but was only capable of winning six games in
caption: The United States Davis Cup team
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