Top of the Pole

When young (22) Pancho Gonzales turned pro last fall, U.S. amateur tennis lost the top man on its totem pole--and the only player in sight who might have sat it out for a while. At Forest Hills last week, the low men were scrambling for Pancho's old spot. The result was a good deal like the confusion in the heavyweight division when Joe Louis hung up his gloves.

Theoretically, this should have been Australia's year. The Aussies had just trounced the U.S. (four matches to one) for the Davis Cup. But in the National Singles last week, the Aussies played like men still in a happy trance over winning the international cup, and as if anything else was anticlimax. By the quarterfinals, the Australian first-liners--Frank Sedgman, Jack Bromwich and Ken McGregor --had all been upset by less-favored Americans.

Early this week, by scrambling their way into the semifinals, four men had as good a claim as anybody else to be considered the pick of the 1950 crop:

P:Taffy-haired little (5 ft. 9 in.) Lefthander Art Larsen, 25, of San Leandro, Calif., No. 6 in U.S. rankings. Larsen, a steady, unspectacular stroker who had wanted to play on the Davis Cup team himself, had had the satisfaction of putting out Davis Cupper Tom Brown.

P:Long-legged, ungainly Dick Savitt, 23, of Orange, N.J. One of the most improved young players at Forest Hills (No. 16 last year), Savitt had beaten Australia's Bromwich to enter the semifinals.

P:Blond, crew-cut Herbie Flam, 21, U.C.L.A. senior, and victor in the 1950 Clay Court Championships where he defeated the U.S.'s No. 1 Davis Cupper, Ted Schroeder.

P:I Tall, dark & handsome Gardnar Mulloy, 36, of Coral Gables, Fla., the only member of the U.S.'s Davis Cup team to reach the semifinals.*

By week's end the best tennis of the tournament had come from bronzed, smooth-stroking Veteran Mulloy, who won all of his matches last week in straight sets. It was also the best tennis of Mulloy's long career (he made his first appearance in the Nationals 15 years ago). Mulloy was not surprised by his durability.

"Why not?" he said. "I don't smoke or drink. I learn more each year. Tilden won his first national title at 27, and was still winning ten years later. I'm in better shape than any of these youngsters. I figure I can go all the way."

Mulloy was wrong. In a semifinal match this week, he lost to the cool retrieving of Herbie Flam in a long, five-set match. Art Larsen subdued Dick Savitt to become the other finalist. One of the two would climb to the top of the totem pole this week, but the pole seemed stumpier than usual.

The Women's Championship almost had a form upset when Althea Gibson (TIME, July 17), first Negro ever to play in the Nationals, carried Wimbledon Champion Louise Brough to within one game of match before rain stopped their second-round contest. But next day, 22-year-old Tennist Gibson no longer had her touch or speed, and she went out of the tournament, 6-1, 3-6, 9-7.

By the semifinals this week, the championship had narrowed down to two veterans and two relative newcomers. The veterans stayed in command. Playing in the same cool & collected fashion that has won her the U.S. title two years in a row, Margaret Osborne du Pont, 32, beat pretty, crop-haired Nancy Chaffee, 21, of Ventura, Calif. Florida's Doris Hart, 25, put out California's Beverly Baker, 20.

*Schroeder, who might have done so, packed his bag and returned to his California job (refrigerators) after the Davis Cup matches.

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