Davis Cup

When Jean Borotra finally convinced people that he would not play singles for the French Davis Cup team this year, because he was too old (34) it became easier to see how the challenge round against England would turn out. The weak member of the French team was un doubtedly young left-handed Andre Merlin, fourth ranking player of France, who had impressed Cochet and Lacoste, the non-playing captain, as more determined than Christian Boussus, who ranks a notch ahead of him. If Merlin lost his matches to Perry and Austin, Borotra and Brugnon would have to win the doubles, Cochet would have to win both his singles matches. Most observers conceded the doubles to France, thought Cochet had a better than even chance against Austin. The draw caused the remaining match--the crucial one between Cochet and Eng land's debonair, black-haired Frederick Perry--to be played on the first day of the series, just before Austin disposed of Merlin 6-3, 6-4, 6-0.

Cochet, wearing shorts like Austin's for the first time in his career, ran up a 4-1 lead. Perry broke his service and won his own twice to tie the score. With the score 4-5 and advantage-in, Perry served what looked like an ace. The linesman called it a fault and Cochet gallantly caught the next serve in his left hand. The set then turned into a long exchange of service games which ended 10-8 for Cochet. Perry took the next two which followed the same pattern, 6-4 and 8-6. Cochet put on what pressure he could in the fourth and won it at 6-3.

In the fifth set, the excitable crowd, well aware that the Cup which France has held for six years depended on the next few games, began to chant "Cochet! Cochet! Cochet!" But little Cochet, dapper and forlorn, needed something more than encouragement. Perry, apparently not tired at all, saw that his opponent was too weary to cover the blazing court. He smashed through five games in a row, making Cochet run as far as possible in every rally. Cochet picked up one game on his own serve but Perry quickly took the next one and" the set, 6-1. In the dressing-room, Perry fainted. Cochet, still conscious but very sad, explained his fall: "At the beginning, everything was all right. Toward the end . . . my legs began to fail me, and that was the finish."

Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon, still probably the second best doubles team in the world, beat George Patrick Hughes and H. G. N. Lee, who had been put on the British side to give Perry a rest, 6-3, 8-6, 6-2. Cochet, who had been practicing desperately since his first match, beat Austin in five sets 5-7, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. This made the score two-all and gave an irrelevant importance to the last match which everyone knew that Perry could not lose. It was this certainty--contrasted with the more amazing certainty that

Perry had blown up in the first set and that Merlin, playing with the calm arrogance of a Cochet, had won it at 6-4-that made the last match so exciting.

The crowd, nervously exhilarated, began not to cheer but to laugh at Perry's nervous blunders. Merlin, with a strange assurance, as though sure of bringing to pass one of those magical victories that have kept the Davis Cup in France so often before, held up his hand for silence. Working hard now and measuring every point, playing himself slowly back to his best game, Perry won the next two sets 8-6, 6-2. From 1-4 in the fourth Merlin brought the score up to 4-all, then 5-all. Perry, in danger now of slipping back into his panic of the first set, managed to break through Merlin's service with a love game. Then he won his own, for game, set, match and the first Davis Cup series England has won since 1912.

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