Christian Boussus - Tennis Career

Tennis Career

He started playing amateur tennis in the late 1920s by entering one of his first tournaments at the age of 17 in the 1926 edition of The French Covered Courts tournament in doubles, which he won by teaming up with French veteran René Lacoste. He was the runner-up at the Pacific South-west Championship in 1928(lost to fellow Frenchman Henri Cochet) although he won the mixed title trophy alongside American Anne Harper. The same year he won his first outdoor doubles title in Düsseldorf pairing Davis Cup teammate Jean Borotra. He won his first singles championships in 1929. He was on the victorious French team at the Davis Cup four times, in 1929, 1930, 1931, and 1932, although he never played. The members of the team became known as the "Four Musketeers" and Boussus was the "Fifth Musketeer". He finally got his chance to play at the Davis cup in 1934, when the Four Musketeers had retired. During World War II in 1941 in Vichy France he won the unofficial French Open doubles title partnering Bernard Destremau, a feat that is unrecognized by the ITF. The same year he starred in a movie called "L'Appel du stade". After the war he became the captain of the French Davis Cup Team between 1949–1952 and vice-captain from 1953. In the very first year of his leadership France reached the final of the 1949 Davis Cup for the first time in 15 years. In club level team competitions he represented Racing Club de France of Paris.

He was defeated in the finals of the 1931 French Open by Jean Borotra. In 1932, he and Marcel Bernard were defeated in the doubles finals of the French Open by Henri Cochet and Jacques Brugnon. He played twice the Australian Championships, in 1928 and 1935, and won the mixed doubles that year, his only Grand Slam title. He competed in the French Open nineteen times between 1927 and 1953, which is the third most appearances in history right after Fabrice Santoro (20) and Francois Jauffret (20). He also won twice the German championships in Hamburg and the British Hard Court Championships on one occasion. He was ranked number one French tennis player four times in a row in the consecutive years of 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937.

Boussus was ranked World No. 9 in 1930 and 1935 by A. Wallis Myers of The Daily Telegraph, and the European No. 6 in 1931 (the latter by "Züricher Sport" newspaper).