1. Ladislav Hecht won the gold medal in singles at the 1932 Maccabiah Games in Mandatory Palestine, and won the 1934 Hungarian International Tennis Singles Championship.
14 Facts About Ladislav Hecht
1. 2.
Ladislav Hecht was born in Zsolna, Kingdom of Hungary, on the nowadays border between Slovakia, Czechia and Poland, and was Jewish.
3.
Ladislav Hecht began to learn tennis at age 11, and in 1931 he moved to Prague for better training conditions.
4.
Ladislav Hecht developed a successful tennis career, many considering him to be the best tennis player in Europe immediately before the Second World War.
5.
Ladislav Hecht won the gold medal in singles at the 1932 Maccabiah Games in Mandatory Palestine.
6.
In 1934, Ladislav Hecht won the Butler Trophy of Monte Carlo alongside Roderich Menzel, defeating Jacques Brugnon and Jean Lesueur in the final.
7.
Ladislav Hecht was a second straight time finalist in Budapest.
8.
In 1936, Ladislav Hecht moved to Budapest, and then sought livelihood in Australia.
9.
Ladislav Hecht was invited to play for the German Davis Cup Team in 1938 after Germany acquired part of Czechoslovakia by an aide to Adolf Hitler who was unaware that he was Jewish, but he declined.
10.
Ladislav Hecht fled to the United States three days before the Nazi Germany invaded the Czech Lands in 1939, and became an American citizen.
11.
Ladislav Hecht worked in a munitions factory in New Jersey during World War II.
12.
Ladislav Hecht was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.
13.
Ladislav Hecht started toy and paintbrush businesses, and later in life lived in Queens, New York.
14.
Ladislav Hecht had two children, Timothy and Andrew, both of whom settled in Aspen, Colorado.