Henner Henkel

Henner Henkel (1937)

Heinrich Ernst Otto "Henner" Henkel (born October 9, 1915 in Posen , German Empire , † January 13, 1943 near Voronezh , Soviet Union ) was a German tennis player . His greatest success was winning the French Championships (now the French Open ) in 1937. Alongside Gottfried von Cramm , he was the most successful German tennis player of the 1930s.

Life

Heinrich Henkel was born in 1915 to Ferdinand Henkel and his wife Margarete in Posen. After the First World War , his family moved to Erfurt in 1919 , where he and his brother Ferdinand, who was five years older than him , came into contact with tennis at the Erfurt sports club on the Cyriaksburg , the forerunner of today's TC Erfurt 93 . In 1927 the family followed his father, who had to move to Berlin for professional reasons .

In 1929 he celebrated his first success by winning the club championships of THC 99 Berlin. In 1930 he took third place at the German youth championships, the following year he moved up to second place. In 1932 and 1933 he won the youth championships and took part in a first game abroad ( Poland ).

From 1934, Henkel regularly took part in international tournaments. In the same year he was nominated for the German Davis Cup team, for which he played 66 games by 1939, of which he won 49. In 1937 he achieved his greatest triumph when he was the second German tennis player after Gottfried von Cramm (1936) to win the French individual championships. This makes Henkel the last German winner to date in Roland Garros' men's singles. Together with von Cramm, he also won the doubles competition. In the same year they were also successful in the US championships in doubles. In 1938 he reached the double finals at Wimbledon at the side of Georg von Metaxa , which was lost to the Americans Don Budge and Gene Mako . From 1937 to 1940 he won the national German championships four times, as well as the international German championships in 1937 and 1939.

Henkel named Hans Moldenhauer as a role model . His strength was his backhand and a strong first serve. He often sprinkled praises into his game. His forehand, however, was rather insecure, and the second serve was harmless.

In 1942, immediately after the Bad Pyrmont anniversary tournament, Henkel was called up and deployed on the Eastern Front. He was shot in the thigh during the Battle of Stalingrad , which he died on January 13, 1943 in a hospital near Voronezh .

The team championships of the juniors of the German Tennis Association Henner-Henkel-Spiele are named in his memory . The Henner Henkel Memorial Tournament has also been held in Erfurt since 1963.

title

singles

No.	year	competition	Final opponent	Result
1.	1934	Villa d'Este	Cam Malfroy	4: 6, 6: 1, 6: 1, 5: 7, 6: 3
2.	1937	French championships	Henry Austin	6: 1, 6: 4, 6: 3
3.	1937	Beaulieu-sur-Mer	Gottfried von Cramm	5: 7, 6: 2, 6: 3
4th	1937	Cairo	Gottfried von Cramm	6: 1, 6: 2, 6: 4
5.	1937	German championships	Vivian McGrath	1: 6, 6: 3, 8: 6, 3: 6, 6: 1
6th	1939	German championships	Roderich Menzel	4: 6, 6: 4, 6: 0, 6: 1

Double

No.	year	competition	partner	Final opponent	Bottom line
1.	1937	French championships	Gottfried von Cramm	Vernon Kirby Norman Farquharson	6: 4, 7: 5, 3: 6, 6: 1
2.	1937	US championships	Gottfried von Cramm	Don Budge Gene Mako	6: 4, 7: 5, 6: 4

literature

• Jutta Deiss: The shadow prince. From: Deutscher Tennis Bund (Ed.): Tennis in Germany. From the beginning until 2002. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002. ISBN 978-3-4281-0846-6 .

Web links

Commons : Henner Henkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• ATP profile Henner Henkel (English)
• ITF profile of Henner Henkel (English)
• Davis Cup statistics from Henner Henkel (English)
• Henner Henkel in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Heinrich Ernst Otto Henkel. tennisarchives.com, accessed on January 4, 2016 (English).