![]() Gottfried von Cramm (left) and George Lyttleton Rogers of Ireland in 1932 | |
Full name | Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm |
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Country (sports) | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Born | Nettlingen, German Empire | 7 July 1909
Died | 8 November 1976 Cairo, Egypt | (aged 67)
Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) |
Turned pro | 1931 (amateur tour) |
Retired | 1952 |
Plays | Right-handed (one-handed backhand) |
Int. Tennis HoF | 1977 (member page) |
Singles | |
Career record | 390–82 (82.6%)[1] |
Career titles | 45[1] |
Highest ranking | No. 1 (1937, ITHF)[2][3] |
Grand Slam singles results | |
Australian Open | SF (1938) |
French Open | W (1934, 1936) |
Wimbledon | F (1935, 1936, 1937) |
US Open | F (1937) |
Doubles | |
Grand Slam doubles results | |
Australian Open | F (1938) |
French Open | W (1937) |
US Open | W (1937) |
Grand Slam mixed doubles results | |
Wimbledon | W (1933) |
Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr[A][4] von Cramm (German: [ˈɡɔtfʁiːt fɔn ˈkʁam] ; 7 July 1909 – 8 November 1976) was a German tennis player who won the French Championships twice and reached the final of a Grand Slam singles tournament on five other occasions. He was ranked number 2 in the world in 1934 and 1936, and number 1 in the world in 1937.[2][5][6] He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977, which states that he is "most remembered for a gallant effort in defeat against Don Budge in the 1937 Interzone Final at Wimbledon".[3]
Von Cramm had difficulties with the Nazi regime, which attempted to exploit his appearance and skill as a symbol of Aryan supremacy, but he refused to identify with Nazism. Subsequently he was persecuted as a homosexual by the German government and was jailed briefly in 1938.
Von Cramm figured briefly in the gossip columns as the sixth husband of Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress.