player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameIgnacy Hanislaw
LastnameTloczynski (Tloczyński)
GenderMale
CountryPoland
Date of birth1911-07-14
Place of birthPoznań, Poland
Date of death2000-12-25
Place of deathEdinburgh, Scotland

About

He fought a fierce, minimally won battle with Józef Hebda for the title of the best Polish tennis player of the 1930s. For a decade, the citizen of Poznań and the citizen of Lviv changed to the top of the national classification list - both of them led it 5 times at the end of the seasons. Both of them also had a chance to win the prestigious Miller Cup, funded by one of the presidents of the Polish Lawn-Tennis Association, for those who win the Polish championship for the first three or five times in a row. In 1939, he was finally picked up by Ignac - a natural talent who, already as a boy for passing balls, became a sparring partner and… a coach. In order for him to be able to start participating in the national competition growing up, he was even given a fictitious employment outside of sports, because the rules of the time strictly forbid people who earned their income from tennis from participating in tournaments. And so, to recognize him as an amateur, a special resolution of the PZL-T was needed, which was passed on January 15, 1929.
He did not have good physical conditions, but he was considered a titan of work, who - unlike his "eternal" rival, batiar "Jóźek" - was successful primarily due to hard training. He played solidly from the bottom of the court, he was a passing champion, he also developed a strong service. He was distinguished by exceptional ambition and bravery.
Twelve-time winner of the Polish champion title (5 in single and double games and 2 in mixed games). In addition, he won 7 times (1, 1, 5) in the well-known Polish international championships before the war. At Roland Garros, he reached the singles quarter-finals and doubles semi-finals (in tandem with Adam Baworowski). He competed in Wimbledon during almost a quarter of a century (1931–1954). He won, among others tournaments in Cannes and Nice and international championships of Portugal, Wales, Latvia ... He defeated many representatives of the European tennis leaders, such as: Vanni Canapele ITA, Jaroslav Drobný CZE, Ladislav Hecht CZE / GER, Henner Henkel GER, Nicolae Mishu ROU, Dragutin Mitić YUG (Croat), Roderich Menzel CZE / GER, Josip Palada YUG (Serb), Yvon Petra FRA, Giorgio de Stefani ITA, and the "great" Bill Tilden USA broke the set.
In the Davis Cup, he has an impressive track record in singles - almost three times more wins than losses. From his first show to his last, he was almost always our hero. He made his debut in May 1930 in a match against Romania and, scoring two singles points, including after defeating the favored Mishu, contributed to the historic, first victory of Poland. And nine years later, in a dramatic but lost match with Germany, in the tense pre-war atmosphere, with the cracking stands on the central court of Legia, he defeated both rivals classified in the world's top ten (Henkel and Menzel). He was also a member of the team for the Central European Cup (Mitropa Cup) - a two-year tournament with teams from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary and Italy, the first edition of which our team won (Tłoczyński won in his eight out of ten matches in singles and doubles) and the continuation was interrupted by the war.
All these successes gave him high positions in rankings, incl. was recognized by the French Kaufman as the third rocket of Europe (after Croatian Franjo Punčec representing Yugoslavia and German Gottfried von Cramm). In Wimbledon 1939 it was deployed from No. 8, but lost in the third round to Indian Ghaus Mohammad. And in Poland, readers of "Przegląd Sportowy" three times selected him among the 10 Best Polish Athletes of a given year (1931 - 2nd place, 1933 - 8th, 1934 - 7th). In 1937 he was awarded - the second in a row, Jadwiga Jędrzejowska - Honorary Badge for Merit of PZL-T.

During the occupation, he was an active conspirator (he dealt mainly with the distribution of the underground press). A soldier of the Home Army (corporal "Igo"), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising, he was wounded. After the fall of the uprising, he was sent to a POW camp in Austria, and after its liberation - to the Anders Army sub-units stationed in Italy, to finally settle in Scotland. He played professionally for another decade. In 1954, at the invitation of the Maharaja, he went to Madras for six months, where he participated in tournaments (including a successful rematch at his pre-war Wimbledon slayer, Mahommada) and gave tennis lessons. He retired in 1955 and on behalf of Dunlop became the coach and manager of a large tennis facility at the Craiglockhart club in Edinburgh. He worked there until 1990, bringing up, among others a few champions of Scotland.

His younger brother, Ksawery (1919–1985), who was the leading Polish junior in the second half of the 1930s, was also a good tennis player. Also a Warsaw insurgent (Second Lieutenant "Orlik"), who distinguished himself in a daring "attack by athletes" on the SS barracks in Koszykowa (one of the few successful Polish actions on the first day of the fighting). After the war, he stayed in the country and won, among others twice the Polish championship in doubles, and was classified 8 times in the top ten of the PZT ranking at the end of the seasons. In the 1960s, he was a member of the PZT Management Board.

Clubs: AZS Poznań, Legia Warszawa, "Polonia" (Great Britain).
Coaches: ???

Australian Open and US National: He didn't play.
Roland Garros - single: quarterfinals (1939), 1/16 finals (1934), twice 1/32 (1933 and 1937); Doubles: semi-final (with Adam Baworowski 1939).
Wimbledon - single: 4 times 1/16 finals (1931, 1939, 1946 and 1953); 6 times 1/32 (1932, 1947, 1950–52 and 1954); 2 times 1/64 (1934 and 1948).

Davis Cup: 1930–1939; 18 matches, 26 wins / 17 defeats, single - 23/8, doubles - 3/9.

PZT classification: 1. (1930, 1931, 1933, 1934 and 1938); 2. (1932 and 1937); 3. (1936); 5. (1929).
Polish champion titles (excluding MMP): 12.
National MP - single: 5 times winner (1930, 1931, 1934, 1938 and 1939) and a finalist (1932); doubles: winner 5 times (with Przemysław Warmiński 1932, Jerzy Stolarow 1933 and 1934 and Adam Baworowski 1938 and 1939) and a finalist 4 times (with Warmiński 1929, Józef Hebda 1935 and 1937 and Czesław Spychała 1936); mix: 2 times winner (with Jadwiga Jędrzejowska 1933 and 1935) and 2 times finalist (with Wanda Dubieńska 1931 and Maria Rudowska 1934).
International MP - single: winner (1934) and 4 times finalist (1931, 1932, 1937 and 1939); doubles: winner (with Hebda 1936) and finalist (with Baworowski 1939); mix: 5 times winner (with J. Jędrzejowska 1931-1933, 1935 and 1939) and finalist (with J. Jędrzejowska (1934).

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