Werner Rautenberg (tennis player)

Werner Rautenberg (born October 31, 1935 in Erfurt ) was a tennis player in the GDR.

Career

Werner Rautenberg was one of the best tennis players in the GDR in the 1950s and 1960s , alongside Horst Stahlberg , Konrad Zanger and Peter Fährmann .

At the age of eleven, the Erfurt native made his first attempts to hit the tennis wall of today's Rot-Weiß Erfurt club with his older brother Hans. Rautenberg learned the profession of decorator in his grandfather's shop. After his aunt, who ran the company, moved to Hamburg, Rautenberg finished his training in another company and was delegated to the sports club Einheit in Berlin shortly afterwards at the age of 19 .

The fast parquet floor, which was played on in the GDR in winter , always suited the serve and volley specialist. In 1958 the service specialist finally made the breakthrough and ended the year in second place in the GDR rankings. In the same year, he attended a tournament of the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail in France together with his doubles partner Peter Fährmann and Inge Wild.

With his sporting achievements he qualified for the tournaments in Egypt in 1959 . After the Wall was built, Rautenberg led the GDR rankings for two years and was therefore able to travel to Cuba for an international match with his mixed partner Hella Riede and the up-and-coming Ulrich Trettin at the end of 1964 .

On the third day of the DTV association in 1966 , Rautenberg was elected as the association's material officer, but was excluded from all DTV committees a short time later because he had initiated the production of shoes and T-shirts without prior consultation.

After completing his studies at DHfK Leipzig, Rautenberg taught sport and biology at a school in Berlin. In the senior sector, he organized his appearances in socialist countries himself, which required many visits to the authorities. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he played as many international tournaments as his health allowed.

literature

• Robin Streppelhoff, tennis as a competitive sport in the GDR , in: Stadion. International Journal for the History of Sports 23 (2007) 2, pp. 243–264