National Tennis

Sober pinch-pennies derive great pleasure from betting--they are indeed the most daring fellows alive, for they hazard their careful stake on the expected and the expected rarely occurs. Your extravagant defrauds himself of excitement. He favors unlikelihoods, only to see them crop up at every turn. This paradox of the wise man and his penny is sustained by the fact that it frequently proves untrue. For instance, conservative students of tennis fully expected William T. Tilden to win the National Tennis Championship which was decided last week at Forest Hills. Perceiving a balance draw, with Tilden and Williams in one half, and William Johnston and Richards in the other, they expected that these four players would move smoothly through to the semifinals; they expected that the dashing foreigners--Borotra of France, Alonzo of Spain, Anderson of Australia--would fall by the wayside; that William Johnston would, as in 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, be runner up, and that he would, as in those years, be defeated.

A few less sensible individuals, eager for the occurrence of an improbability, talked about Wallace Johnson of Philadelphia. Was it possible that he was about to win a National Title? In 1912 he was finalist against Maurice McLaughlin, in 1921 against Tilden. He has been rated in the first ten longer than any other player in tennis. His first appearance in that list was in 1908 when he placed ninth; in 1909 he was third, 1912 third, 1913 fourth, 1914 sixth, 1919 fifth, 1920 tenth, 1921 fourth, 1922 fifth. This season he has been playing his standard game, neither better nor worse. He is not capable of rising to a pitch of resistless efficiency; he is always capable of astounding by being just what he is expected to be--always able to confound doom's fifers by playing in any situation dependable, heady, incisive tennis. To every man comes a moment which he can mistake for his "chance." Certain sports writers hinted that Johnson might win. It was an unlikely, a fantastic notion. It might therefore, come to pass. . . .

Play began. After the conventional eliminations of the first and second rounds, Williams crushed Borotra, and William Johnston, not without dust and heat, defeated Manuel Alonzo, the Flower of Spain. In that round Wallace Johnson came to his first test. He was bracketed against James Anderson, Captain of the Australian Davis Cup Team.

Anderson is tall as a barber's pole. He often wears a blazer striped like one. With the deliberate elegance, so typically British, which is seen to best advantage in Australians, Canadians, South Africans and Russians, he strides about. dealing titanic strokes. Tilden occasionally hits as hard as Anderson. Few other players compare with him for power.

Wallace Johnson, very erect, very sleek and ungraceful, leans back a little as his racquet meets the ball. He never seems particularly concerned with what he is doing. No matter how fierce his match, he always has an air of being one of the linesmen. He depends for success on his celebrated chop-stroke-- a shot which he executes with the same twist of the wrist that a chef in the front window of a low-grade restaurant employs to turn a pancake. The ball skims the net low, finds corners and clips lines with uncanny accuracy, bounces; extremely low. With it, Johnson clipped down Anderson, 6-1, 1-6, 8-6, 6-4. Next day he faced Tilden.

The champion had not had occasion to deal with that chop-stroke for some time. The sort of men who make their bread and butter by betting on mud-horses* were ready to wager that it would bother him. It is true that Tilden has a chop-stroke which--although he does not often use it--is fully the equal of Johnson's; true also that he is equipped with a drive, service, volley, far superior to his opponent's. These things could not have prevented the unexpected from happening--had other causes made the unexpected inevitable. Since no such other causes cropped up, he took his match with ease 6-4, 6-0, 6-4. Thus were the apostles of unlikelihood brought to derision.

Richards won from Rene Lacoste, Johnson from Alonzo, Williams from Howard Kinsey. In the semi-final round Tilden, after dropping the first set, paid Vincent Richards the compliment of opposing him with his utmost, with the consequence that Richards steadily lost hope and games, going to pieces in the last set to surrender, 6-8, 6-4, 6-4, 6-1. Johnston devoted 47 minutes to the disposal of Richard Norris Williams 2nd, who as usual could not summon his own brilliance when he needed it most.

Just as conservative observers, had expected, Tilden and Johnston faced each other in the finals. Just as they had expected, Johnston played superbly. His drives bit with the malice of soundless white bees. He took the first set, 6-4, and a huge crowd stood up to shout for him. In the second set came the knot of the match. Johnston led at 9-8 and 30-40. Tilden was serving. If Johnston had taken that point, it would have been extremely unlikely that Tilden could have closed up a two-set lead, and already it was quite clear that this was not a tournament fertile in unlikelihoods.

Johnston did not take it. Once more in the last set, after Tilden had won the second, third, and Johnston the fourth, the challenger had another glowing chance. He had broken through Tilden's service in the third game, needed only a point to put him 3-1. He made, instead, four successive errors. A few minutes later Tilden stood at match point. Thrusting all the leverage of his body into his stroke, he served, and became for the sixth time, as Johnston waved his racquet at the fall, Lawn Tennis Champion of the U. S.

* Old or deficient horses that run best on a muddy track.