Tennis

Wightman Cup, The only thing that could be said in favor of a weak British team's chances against a strong U. S. team was that none of this year's British players was married and they would therefore, presumably, have no worries about absent husbands. True, two of the U. S. tennists-- Alice Marble and Carolin Babcock--had sore backs and Helen Jacobs, in the year since she lost the U. S. singles championship to Alice Marble, had dislocated her thumb, torn a shoulder ligament and banged her knee with a racket. But pretty Kay Stammers was not feeling in top form either and she was the mainstay of the British (Wimbledon Champion Dorothy Round stayed at home). In the first day's play at Forest Hills last week, Alice Marble beat Ruth Mary Hardwick, Helen Jacobs beat Kay Stammers and Sarah Palfrey Fabyan & Alice Marble won a doubles match from Evelyn Dearman & Joan Ingram. With seven matches scheduled and the U. S. leading 3-to-0, the U. S. had a chance to clinch the Cup in the second day's first match, in which Miss Jacobs was to play Miss Hardwick.

For one set it looked as though some one else would have to do the clinching. Miss Hardwick hit the ball harder than Miss Jacobs. She had also an excellent backhand but a bad tendency to wait for a dropping ball on her forehand. She kept Miss Jacobs so busy chasing fast, net-skimming drives close to the lines in the first set that she won it in spite of her un orthodox forehand style, 6-2. Then Helen Jacobs got her famous chop working, sent her opponent an endless procession of floating teasers, worried the second set away from her, 6-4, ran out the third, 6-2, for the match and the seventh U. S. Wightman Cup victory in a row.

After that the young ladies relaxed and began to have a good time. Kay Stammers, most graceful of lefthanders, played a slam-bang game as though she were tossing off an easy victory, but lost to Miss Marble, 6-3, 6-1. In the same sort of match, twinkle-toed Sarah Palfrey Fabyan in her well-bred fashion beat left-handed Margot Lumb, English squash racquets champion. For the last doubles match Captain Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, the Cup's sturdy donor who still: plays capable tennis herself, substituted chubby Dorothy May Sutton Bundy for Miss Jacobs, who had done enough for one day. Miss Bundy, daughter of onetime (1904) U. S. Champion May Sutton, squealed, giggled, sprawled, enjoyed herself so thoroughly in her first Wightman Cup match that she and Marjorie Gladman Van Ryn lost to Miss Stammers & Freda James, 6-3, 10-8, only U. S. defeat of the series.

At Newport, Devotees of Wightman Cup play may feel that it is a beginning and an end in itself, but thousands of U. S. tennis enthusiasts, waiting for their first look at Polish Strongwoman Jadwiga Jedrzejowska and Germany's Baron Gottfried von Cramm, felt that the Wightman Cup matches and the Newport Casino invitation tournament last week were simply warm-ups for the national singles championships which get under way next week at Forest Hills. The main problem of interest at Newport was whether Robert Riggs could beat the great Donald Budge. Riggs, 19-year-old son of a California clergyman, had lost only one match out of 70 played this year, had in the past two months carried off the Southampton and Seabright cups, the Eastern grass court title, the national clay court championship. At Newport last week, in the semifinals, he beat Davis Cupman Frank Parker for the second time in a fortnight. Budge's opponents gave him trouble all week and he was so tired of the sight of green grass and white lines that he considered defaulting. But he kept on playing and, as expected, reached the final with Riggs. For two sets the match seesawed, Riggs scoring with beautiful placements, Budge with smashing serves and volleys. Then Budge turned on extra pressure and Riggs had no more to turn on. Budge walked away with the last two sets, won the match 6-4, 6-8, 6-1, 6-2. With unfailing stamina Budge played five more hard sets in the afternoon, winning the. doubles final with Gene Mako against Charles Hare & George Patrick Hughes of Great Britain, after losing the first two sets.

Then Budge and Mako went to Chestnut Hill, Mass., to defend their national doubles title against the added threat of Baron Gottfried von Cramm and Heinrich Henkel, who arrived from Germany. Von Cramm, who said "I feel very fit," is also the last hurdle that Budge must jump in the Forest Hills singles.

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