player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameRobert
LastnameAbdesselam
GenderMale
CountryFrance
Date of birth1920-01-27
Place of birthEl Biar, Algeria
Date of death2006-07-26
Place of deathParis, France

About

The following is an English translation of a French article on Robert Abdesselam published online on 17 March 2015 by Roger Cousin. The original article can be accessed here: Abdesselam Robert - Mémoires de Guerre

Robert Abdesselam

Robert Abdesselam was born on January 27, 1920, in El Biar (Algeria), to a Kabyle father, Mehana Abdesselam, a lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeal, and a French mother, Marguerite Tedeschi, a renowned painter from the Parisian bourgeoisie.

Robert grew up in El-Biar, where he discovered tennis, which would become his passion. He completed his secondary school education at the Lycée d'Alger and at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris. He then took courses at “Sciences Po” [the Paris Institute of Political Studies] and obtained a law degree from the Faculty of Law in Paris. He continued to play tennis alongside his studies and became one of the best French players. He was junior champion of France twice, in 1937 and 1938, and became the university world champion in 1939.

During World War Two, while he was at his peak, he travelled to Algiers in 1942 after the Allied landing in North Africa. He participated in the Italian campaign as part of the French Expeditionary Corps led by Marshal Juin. He was mentioned in despatches several times and received the Croix de Guerre/War Cross 1939-1945 and the American Bronze Star Medal. When the war ended, he was able to resume his international playing career.

He was for a long time the second best French player and was selected fourteen times for the Davis Cup between 1947 to 1953. At the French International Championships, he reached the round of 16 in the men’s singles event in 1938 and 1947, and the quarter-finals in 1949. In 1947, he reached the round of 16 of the same event at Wimbledon. From 1946 to 1963, he was also a lawyer at the Court of Appeal in Algiers.

In 1956, he decided to end his sports career and devote himself to politics. He was elected as a deputy for Algiers in 1958. He then campaigned for the maintenance of a French Algeria, which distanced him from Gaullism, and for integration, which distanced him from the OAS [“Secret Army Organisation”]. Considered a traitor by the Algerian nationalists, he was shot multiple times in Paris by an FLN [“National Liberation Front”] militant on May 4, 1960.

On November 8, 1961, Robert Abdesselam was one of 80 parliamentarians who voted for the “Salan Amendment”. In March 1962, he described the Évian Accords as “inhumane, disreputable, and undignified for our country”. That same year, he was cited as a witness in the trials of Edmond Jouhaud and Raoul Salan.

After Algeria’s independence in 1962, Robert Abdesselam left politics to focus on his career as an international lawyer. He notably contributed to the expansion of the Lacoste brand into foreign markets. From 1968 to 1974, he served as vice-president of the French Tennis Federation, and from 1975 to 1976 in the same role at the International Tennis Federation.

He was also president of the Racing Club de France from 1959 to 1992 and president of the International Lawn Tennis Club from 1993 to 2004. In 1998, he testified at the trial of Maurice Papon, whom he had met him in Morocco in 1948 during a tournament. He passed away in Paris on July 26, 2006, and his funeral took place in the chapel of the École Militaire. In his biography of Robert Abdesselam, Michel Dreyfus described his life as “more captivating than a novel”.

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