Winners at Wimbledon

Ten years ago, a gangling ball boy named Dick Savitt thought he was wasting his time fooling around on the courts of the Berkeley Tennis Club in Orange, NJ. He really wanted to be a big-league baseball player. Somehow it never worked out that way. Last week, some 3,000 miles from Yankee Stadium, Dick Savitt was still sidetracked from baseball, still up to his ears in tennis, but scarcely wasting his time. He was busy on the famed center court at Wimbledon, playing in the final round of the All-England championship.

It had taken him the whole ten years to get there. Playing between chores as a ball boy did not give Savitt (rhymes with have it) anywhere near as much practice time as the youngsters in the year-round California tennis foundries. At Cornell, where he majored in economics and became captain of the tennis team, winters are rugged; Savitt's tennis developed slowly, not nearly as fast as his heavyweight boxer's body (6 ft. 3 in., 185 Ibs.). In his junior year (1949), slow-footed Dick Savitt won the Eastern Intercollegiates, mainly by overpowering his opponents, and was ranked 16th nationally.

Eager to Learn. Last year, as his footwork began to catch up with his booming power, Dick fought his way to the semifinals of the Nationals at Forest Hills. U.S. Champion Art Larsen stopped him cold, but Savitt was tagged as a comer, and ranked sixth. Last winter, Savitt went on a barnstorming trip to Australia.There he began to reach peak form, partly under the tutelage of Veteran Adrian Quist. Says Quist: "He was ceaselessly eager to learn and profited promptly from every fragment of advice." Savitt crowned his tour by winning the Australian Championship.* In the four-set final, Savitt whipped young (22) Ken McGregor, who had clinched the Davis Cup last fall.

_ After that, Savitt began to brood about his game, went into a bad slump as he toured from Cairo to the Riviera, playing in minor European tournaments. He was over-tennised, nervous and jumpy. Jaroslav Drobny, 32, beat him six out of seven times. In the recent French championships, against Drobny, Savitt was leading 4-2 in the deciding set when he blew up over a petty error and lost the match.

Ready to Score. But last week at Wimbledon, Savitt was at the top of his form, with everything under control. He swept Art Larsen in straight sets, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4. In the semifinals he met his old nemesis, Herb Flam, who had beaten him twelve times (but not this time, though the match went to five sets). In the finals, Savitt met Australia's McGregor again. Savitt knew how to play McGregor: keep him away from the net, but avoid lobs, which McGregor usually kills with savage precision.

London's Wimbledon gallery, the most knowing and courteous of tennis audiences, understandably tended to cheer for the Empire player from Down Under. But they had little to cheer about. Savitt's flat, deep serves, baseline-nicking drives, and sharply angled passing shots often left McGregor flatfooted. Savitt won in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4--the shortest final (61 min.) in memory. Only after the final point, in which McGregor sprawled helplessly after a whipping backhand down the line, did Savitt yank the emotional safety valve. Throwing his racket high in the air, he exploded in a fierce yell of triumph: "Yes-s-s!"

Doris Hart of Miami helped the U.S. share in four of the five Wimbledon titles by winning three herself. In her fifth try, Doris won the women's title by whipping her pal Shirley Fry, 6-1, 6-0. The Misses Hart and Fry then beat the veteran doubles pair of Mrs. Margaret Osborne du Pont and Louise Brough, four-time Wimbledon champions, 6-3, 13-11. Doris and Australia's Frank Sedgmari won the mixed-doubles title, 7-5, 6-2, from the Australian team of Mervyn Rose and Mrs. Nancye Wynne Bolton. Sedgman and McGregor successfully defended their title by downing Drobny and South Africa's Eric Sturgess, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

*Only other U.S. winners: Frederick B. Alexander (1908), Don Budge (1938).

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