player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameDaniel (Dan)
LastnamePrenn
GenderMale
CountryGermany
Date of birth1904-09-07
Place of birthVilna, Russia
Date of death1991-09-03
Place of deathDorking, Great Britain

About

Daniel Prenn was a German, Polish and British tennis player of Jewish origin. He was ranked the World No. 6 for 1932 by A. Wallis Myers and the European No. 1 by "American Lawn Tennis" magazine. He was a runner-up for the mixed doubles title of Wimbledon in 1930. He later became a successful businessman.

Daniel Prenn was born in Vilnius to a railway building contractor. The family moved to Berlin after World War I.

Daniel Prenn represented Germany in the World table tennis Championship of 1926 in London reaching the fourth round in singles and the quarterfinals in doubles.

In 1928 he won the German tennis championships.

In 1930 he was a German Club team champion representing the Rotweiss Club of Berlin beating fellow hometown club Blau-Weiss eight to one. Prenn won both of his doubles matches. He failed to win the Berlin international Championships and subsequently lost to Bill Tilden in the final. He also lost the doubles with his Davis Cup teammate Heinrich Kleinschroth to the duo of Tilden and Erik Worm. A month later they met again in a match for the Dutch Championships doubles title, although this time they formed a team and won against the Dutch champions Henrik Timmer and Arthur Diemer-Kool.

In 1931 he won the singles, doubles and mixed doubles championships of the City of Dresden tournament. The same year he lost the Berlin international Championships the second time to Roderich Menzel in straight sets but won the doubles partnering with him.

He was a runner-up for the Danish Covered Court Championships in 1932 losing to Danish champion Einer Ulrich.

In the Davis Cup from 1928 through 1932, Prenn played 13 matches, winning 17 rubbers and losing 5 compiling a 73% winning record.

He rose to the top of the German rankings starting from 1925 when he was ranked 15, in 1926 broke into the top ten at tenth, in 1927 he was the fourth best player in the country and from 1928 to 1932 he peaked the German tennis charts.

After he was barred from tennis because of his Jewish origin first he tried to apply for a Polish playing license to be part of the Poland Davis Cup team but was rejected by the Polski Związek Tenisowy (Polish Tennis Association) mostly as a result of his dismissal of previous Polish invitations and that he dropped his Polish citizenship earlier in 1932. He then changed nationality and represented Great Britain in the 1935 Maccabiah Games.

After moving to Great Britain he had a successive run in winning a series of tournaments in 1933 including the Scottish Lowland Championships against Antoine Gentien, the West of England Championships against Henrik Timmer (also finalist in doubles) and the Paris Championships against Christian Boussus.

In 1934 he clinched the Surrey covered courts tournament in Dulwich after defeating American D. N. Jones.

In 1935 he was the runner-up for the mixed doubles contest of the British Hard Court Championships pairing up with Evelyn Dearman. Unfortunately a flu prevented his partner to compete that day and had to skip the match and so the victory was awarded to their opponents He lost the Harrow tournament of London to Bunny Austin in straight sets and the French covered court championships to Jean Borotra also in straights.

In 1937 he lost the Priory tournament final to Kho Sin-Kie.

Apart from tennis, he was an amateur boxer and runner. He graduated at the Technische Hochschule of Charlottenberg earning a doctorate in engineering in 1929. He received the Reichsmedaille for winning the European Zone of the 1932 International Lawn Tennis Challenge.
After moving to England he launched his own audio equipment company in 1935 in Kentish Town.
In 1946–1949 he had five copyrighted patents related to plastic molding. His company, Truvox Engineering, was sold to Racal in 1969 for $1.26 million.
In 1970 he founded Celestion Electronics, a loudspeaker manufacturer. He had several children, Oliver who later become a Wimbledon Junior Champion and competed in the main Wimbledon competitions as well.
Oliver also took over the family enterprise in 1988 and runs the firm to this day. His another son John Allen Nicholas was a shareholder in Lacoste and as an avid supporter of tennis and squash he got Celestion involved into a racquet sponsoring venture, which ended in 2010. He's still interested in or owning a dozen companies.

Daniel Prenn was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.

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