player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameOttó
LastnameSzigetti (Schmidt)
GenderMale
CountryHungary
Date of birth1911-12-22
Place of birthCsobánka, Hungary
Date of death1976-04-05
Place of deathBudapest, Hungary

About

Formerly known as Otto Schmidt.

His father was the caretaker of the MAC track in Margaret Island, and his brother was a tennis coach, so he couldn't escape the sport either. He became a miniature nurse at the age of seventeen and took up employment in Slovakia and worked in Marseille in 1934. Between 1930 and 1937 he was a competitor of the Hungarian Athletics Club (MAC), and between 1938 and 1947 he was a competitor of the Újpest Gymnastics Association (UTE).

He was in prison during World War II, but continued playing tennis until his retirement in 1948. Then he was called to the federal captain. His work as a coach, whose stations were Vasas SC, Factory Builders and Spartacus Budapest, continued until 1972. He died of a heart attack in 1976.

Although his movement and leg work were not perfect due to his teddy bear's stature, his technique made him an outstanding player.

He also started as a junior champion, not without success: he entered the quarter-finals at the 1932 World Championship in Berlin. [2] In 1934, Emil Gábor was defeated in the finals of the Hungarian Championship. [4]

In 1935 he applied for the amateur status, then he took up the name of Szigeti. In the same year he won the Hungarian Championship for the first time. He defended his title in 1936, and then in 1938 and last in 1947 he became the champion again. He also won four championship titles in pairs: Béla Pető in 1936, Kálmán Aschner in 1938, Emil Gábor in 1945, Józseff Asbóth in 1946 [5]. In 1943 he was defeated by József Asbóth in the Hungarian Championship and in the 1943 and 1944 Hungarian International Championships. [6] He has won twenty-three championship titles in his career (four in four, four in pairs, three in mixed pairs, three in team, one in Hungarian international championships, four in odd and four in mixed pairs), eight of them after the war. [2]

In 1936 he won the Budapest International Championship [7], the Hungarian International Championship [8] and the Hungarian Championship [9]. In 1937, he won the Austrian International Tennis Championship [10] and the indoor championship in Újpest, the so-called championship. [11]

In 1938 he won the first prize at the Budapest Championship [12] and wins his international championship in Germany [13]. After the four Grand Slam tournaments, it was only Béla Kehrling's success in 1924 [14] before the fifth strongest tournament in the world [14].

He achieved his best results in the Grand Slam tournaments in 1939, Roland Garroson reached the semi-finals, where he was defeated by Riggs, the first winning champion in Wimbledon, [16] to Wimbledon 4th. [17]

He won a national championship twice with his team in 1936 with the MAC and in 1943 with the UTE [18]. In 1941 he was a member of the Central European Cup (Trofeo Roma). [19]

In 16 meetings, he played 32 times in the Hungarian national team, but due to his professional past he could never be a member of the Hungarian Davis Cup team [2], even though in 1937 the international association also recognized his amateur status, [20] the Davis Cup however, his organizer received reservations. [21] It could also have played a role in that, with his brother, he was the owner of a joint sporting goods store [22], which also sold rackets with his name. For this reason, the National Federation of Hungarian Sporting Traders has reported for prophecy. Given that the amateur rule found no objection to the placing of players' own bats on the market, the announcement was not a great success. [23] A few weeks earlier, his mother, MAC, accused him of violating the amateur rule when he changed association. They reported that he had left the association for a better job. The Disciplinary Committee of the Alliance did not see any reason to initiate proceedings because "whoever gets a job is not a professional". The news of the era concludes with this: "This decision also proves that the certain boundary that separates a pet athlete from a professional player is becoming increasingly blurred." [24] he did not appear in the Davis Cup.

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