Linesmen Ready?

(See Cover)

In the lexicon of champions, fun and games are strictly separate. Big-time tennis is fun to watch, but not to play. Two little rectangles of grassy ground -- one in a suburb of London, the other in a suburb of New York -- have seen more championship and less fun than any other spots in the world. Near one of those rectangles (not on it, for it was being kept sacred for the tournament), scores of intent young men, dressed in white shorts and short-sleeved shirts, were leaping, sprinting, and hitting the ball for all they were worth. They were practicing for the National Singles tournament, which starts this week.

To a man from Mars, this scene at the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills might have appeared like a frenzied ballet, in which no performer stood out, no individual could be distinguished. As any tennis fan could have told him, however, every one was different, and only a few were worth watching.

One who was well worth watching was a swarthy, black-haired young man with deep-set eyes and powerful, slightly hunched shoulders. The picture of intent, unsmiling concentration, he smashed serves, laced backhands down the alley and crosscourt, whaled deep forehands to the corners.

As other players, sweating and spent, ambled to the clubhouse showers, they paused for a moment to watch Dick Savitt, the boy who has won two big ones this year and is hot after the third.* In their speculative eyes there was a new respect, but skepticism too.

They knew he could be beaten; he has lost more tournaments this year than he has won. Nevertheless, nobody can win the Australian championship and Wimbledon in the same year by accident; they knew that Dick Savitt was the man to watch this week.

Three Theories. In spite of the fact that Art Larsen is U.S. champion, at Forest Hills Savitt is seeded No. 1. His rise to the top is recent, and looks fast. In fact, it took him quite a while to get there. Like all athletes of championship caliber, he is sure of his own ability: "If I am on my game, nobody can beat me ... The others are coming uphill to me ... I'm the man to beat." A man in his tennis shoes has to believe that, but he has yet to convince his peers that he is the nonpareil.

In the endless gossip of the lockerroom, where the players dissect their matches with the fanaticism of shot-by-shot golfers--and remember the precise scores of each match for years--several theories are advanced on just how to beat Savitt. Bill Talbert, 32-year-old Davis Cup veteran and still a quick man on his feet (for three sets), says: "Make him run." Talbert's pal and protege Tony Trabert, the 20-year-old sensation of the summer circuit, thinks the answer is: "Hit 'em harder." Gardnar Mulloy, a canny old hand at 37, says: "Mix him up."

The tennis fans who will pour into the

Forest Hills stadium this week and next for one of the widest-open tournaments in years will see these and other theories in practice. And they will see a Savitt markedly improved over the player who was beaten in the semi-finals last year by Larsen. They will see a well-provisioned athlete (salt tablets, extra wristbands, a strip of toweling hitched to his waist), who handles his heavy (15-oz.) racket as if it were an extension of his huge right hand. Savitt has the virtues and defects of his build (6 ft. 3 in., 185 Ibs.), with a fullback's shoulders and driving power. He is necessarily slower-footed (shoe size: 13) than a smaller man; and he develops too much momentum, after he gets under way, to change direction quickly. But in the strict limitations of a tennis court, a tall player who hits hard has one great advantage: power. If he can control his power, and smack the ball where he wants it to go, that advantage can be overwhelming. Savitt's new game has power; and on the big occasions he has shown control too.

Savitt has not got the devastating backhand of a Don Budge, the whiplash forehand of a Bill Johnston, the tantalizing volleying touch of a Vincent Richards, or even the smashing serve of a Bob Falkenburg. He certainly does not possess the all-court finesse of Bill Tilden, nor the classic shots of Sidney Wood. What he has got is a simple, overpowering attack; a smashing serve and deep, hard-hit ground strokes that keep his opponent scrambling in the back court, on the defensive. Says ex-U.S. Champion Ted Schroeder: "He hits a heavy ball, which comes over at you like a cannon."

Talbert's "make him run" theory is good as far as it goes; but it does not answer the overwhelming power of Savitt's attack when the attack is really rolling. Trabert's "hit 'em harder" thesis is valid only for somebody who--like slashing Trabert himself, and possibly Australia's Frank Sedgman--can actually outhit Savitt. Mulloy's idea of "mixing him up" has worked--with considerable help from Savitt himself. Just a fortnight ago, in Savitt's own bailiwick (Orange, N.J.), Mulloy beat him in the semi-finals of the Eastern Grass Court championship. But Savitt was stale and edgy; he let himself be disturbed by footfault calls, deliberately dropped the last game of the fourth set and lost the match by losing his control.

"I Want a Rest." Unlike most of the extraverts he competes with, Savitt burns inwardly, and he has not yet learned to convert his bottled-up steam into more power for the boilers. When the gallery at Orange booed him for protesting a linesman's decision, and for the obviousness with which he threw the final points of a hopeless set, he admitted afterwards in the lockerroom: "I was a poor sport ... I don't know what's the matter with me . . . I can't get going ... I don't get mad anymore when I lose a point... I'm over-tennised ... I want a rest. I used to be so eager, but I never had tennis coming out of my ears before."

All this he blurted out in the bedlam of well-wishers, gladhanders, hangers-on and autograph hounds, against whose petty irritations he has had to build up an impervious defense. On these occasions his brown eyes, expressive in conversation, get a glazed look. He fumbles for socks and shorts, nodding agreement to whatever is said. "Yes, Yes, O.K., O.K., O.K.," he mutters over & over again. Reporters bother him more, and in a different way: "It makes me very tired to talk to the newspapermen. You have to think hard about tennis all the time."

By the time of his defeat at Orange he had had too much tennis, there was no doubt about that. But though he wanted a rest, there was no rest to be had: he had become too valuable a property of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association to be allowed to do as he liked. Two days later, Savitt, along with Trabert, Larsen and Budge Patty, was whisked off to Canada to play in the final of the American Zone Davis Cup matches. Significantly, Savitt and Trabert, the youngest players, carried the burden of the important opening singles matches. Savitt finally got his longed-for recess when the L.T.A. excused him from last week's National Doubles championships* at Boston's Longwood Cricket Club. It was only the third time in 15 months (since he graduated from Cornell) that Dick has had a week at home with his family. That is part of the price he pays for playing bigtime, fulltime, worldwide tennis.

Tennis for Your Supper. His itinerary for the past year sounds like something out of Baedeker. Last summer it was a tour of the U.S. eastern seaboard from the Merion (Pa.) Cricket Club to the Newport (R.L) Casino, ending with the Nationals. Then it was a fast flight to Chile (with a stopover at Miami) for a month of tournaments and exhibitions. Three days after he got home, he was off for Australia for three months. Then back to Hawaii for ten days of exhibition matches, five days at home, and a flight to Europe in the middle of February.

The European high spots: San Remo, Egypt (Cairo and Alexandria), Monte Carlo, Rome, Palermo, Paris, Turin, Berlin, Hamburg, Paris again (for the French championships), Stockholm, Brussels and London (for Wimbledon). It was, excluding the tennis, pretty good fun--and, under the peculiar financial code of amateur tennis, it was all free.

Dick Savitt does not intend to make a career of tennis. In that case, as a young (24) college graduate, oughtn't he to be buckling down to his future business instead of gallivanting about the world? "Look," he says earnestly, "I'd have to spend the next 30 years to earn enough money to travel and live like this. We always travel first class, we eat in the best clubs and restaurants. People in Europe are tennis-mad; they knock themselves out to give us a good time. We get to know the natives--not just a bunch of fellow tourists. I give them good tennis. They make money, but I get plenty in return."

What Globetrotter Savitt and his fellow tennis tourists get is a strictly regulated millionaire's life on a ditchdigger's pay--about $12 a day (for expenses). It is not the way most people would like to travel, even though it sounds fine: all expenses paid, and nothing to do but play tennis for your supper. Even for those who don't chase tournaments around the world, the tennis season has become so long, and so unremitting, that few players today ever really seem to enjoy playing. Sedgman is dogged; Patty is deadpan; Trabert is earnest; Flam is tense.

But off the court, the majority of the players are so floppily relaxed, so full of camaraderie and good spirits that they act like a college fraternity on an outing. Good-natured ribbing (the players have their own word for it: "psyching") and horseplay up to & including hotfoots is standard behavior. Sample: Budge Patty, dressed to the nines, sits down in front of Savitt and Trabert to watch a match. Patty turns, grins, and asks rhetorically: "Am I blocking your view?"

Trabert sarcastically replies: "Not at all." Then, grabbing Patty's snappy houndstooth jacket by the shoulder pads, Trabert exclaims triumphantly: "But I can't see through all this camouflage." Savitt, with a look of horror and astonishment at the shoulder padding: "Good gosh, is your tailor mad at you?" A favorite expression, designed to display both blase boredom and grudging applause while watching a particularly dazzling rally: "Are they kidding?" Watching, for Dick, is more fun than the sometimes agonizing strain of playing: "It's much nicer to watch; then you can't lose."

Big-time tennis players, with few exceptions, form a close little group which might be mistaken for a mutual admiration society--and Dick Savitt is a member in good standing. In the happy-go-lucky world of the tennis players, they have their consciously serious moments. Most are college men (Savitt majored in economics) and most are veterans* (Savitt's service: a year in the Navy as a seaman). But politics and world affairs are strictly a secondary topic in bull sessions. The main subjects: women, poker (and allied card games) and, naturally, tennis.

In his travels, Dick has come across things that impressed him: "The Sphinx and I got along fine." In Germany, he was particularly struck by both the devastation and the reconstruction. "Those people work like dogs. The Germans don't just work so they can get vacations like a lot of Americans. If they set their minds to something, they'll get it done ... I hope we don't have to fight them again." Did he have any trouble in Germany? "Gee, no. The crowds at Berlin were real enthusiastic . . . Oh, because I am Jewish? ... No, I never had any trouble that way. I know some clubs are prejudiced because they don't have any Jewish members ... I don't think about it much."

Dick has never had much reason to think about it. Brought up in New Jersey's middle-income suburbia (his father has his own food brokerage business), Dick, an only child, had a happy-go-- lucky, comfortable youth marked by a passion for athletics of any sort, but particularly baseball and football. He never picked up a tennis racket until he was 13, dropped it almost immediately because "I didn't like it. Tennis is considered sissy by some people here in America." A year later, after watching the New Jersey State tournament from the vantage point of a ballboy, Dick decided that tennis was not so sissy after all : "I saw Don McNeill [1940 National champion] and other good guys play. Any kid that sees tennis like that all the time will want to play it well."

You Have to Be Eager. That summer Dick won a local boys' tournament, entered the New Jersey Public Parks tournament and lost, love and love, in the first round. In 1943, the Savitt family moved to El Paso, Texas, where the gangling (6 ft. 1 in.) kid of 16 became infatuated with basketball and practically gave up tennis again. By his senior year (1945) Dick, a high-scoring forward, was El Paso High's co-captain and all-state choice. He played a little tennis on the side.

When the Navy stationed him in Memphis, Dick's athletic talents got him a soft job sorting equipment and a chance to play basketball with the Navy team that was ranked fifth in the country. Next year, as a Cornell freshman, Dick was good enough to make the varsity squad, but a gash under his eye and a badly wrenched knee sent him back to tennis. Winters in Ithaca, N.Y. are rugged, and the only place he could practice was in the big indoor armory, "competing with R.O.T.C. tanks rumbling around. You had to be real eager to play." Dick was real eager.

A driving desire to excel made him the team's No. 1 player that spring, got him a 1947 national ranking of 26th. The next year, Dick improved his volleying and began to come to the net more, but by then the postwar California tennis foundry was in high gear, spewing out rafts of young tennis comers. Dick was still 26th in 1948. With a sound ground game that largely compensated for his slowness of foot, Savitt jumped ten numbers in the national ranking, and ended the next year as No. 16.

But he still had not beaten anybody very notable. He wanted fiercely to be the best; to be the best, he had to learn how to beat the field. Last year, with college off his mind--and only tennis on it--he set to work to learn a winning game.* He learned how to use his tremendous strength and stamina to wear down his faster-footed opponents. His ground strokes from the baseline were solidified by the years of trying for length and pace when he was too slow to get to the net. He modified and simplified his serve, always a potent weapon, and got his first serve in oftener without losing any of its power. He won the Eastern Intercollegiate, Eastern Clay Court and New York State tournaments--all relatively minor events and all on clay--before tackling the first of the grass-court circuit, the Pennsylvania championship at the Merion Cricket Club.

Bachelor's Degree. There, his dogged fighting qualities, his persistence and determination, and growing control over his hard hitting paid off. He beat Harry Likas and Vic Seixas (a higher ranked player) in the early rounds. In the semi-final and final matches (against Earl Cochell and Ed Moylan), Savitt dropped the first two sets, and was on the verge of defeat. He won both matches. That worked wonders with his game, and with his belief in himself. It was, in a sense, his bachelor's degree in tennis.

The three ensuing months in Australia gave him a fine postgraduate course. In the Australian championship, after beating wily Veteran John Bromwich in the quarterfinals, Savitt faced two-time Champion Sedgman in the semi-final bracket. The match went to five sets, and in the fifth, Sedgman spurted to a 4-2 lead. Savitt, always tense when he's ahead, simply relaxed and began hitting winners, won four straight games and the match. In the final, against rangy Ken McGregor, "I felt that nothing could stop me." McGregor couldn't. Dick won handily, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, 6-1.

In his European campaigning ("minor league stuff"), Savitt had only a so-so record, actually lost six of seven matches (on clay) to Jaroslav Drobny, ex-Czech Davis Cup veteran. The losses did little to shake Dick's new-found faith in his ability to win, but they did create a jinx. Drobny beat him again in the quarter-finals of the French championships, a tournament that Savitt really wanted to win. He began to fret, decided he was over-tennised, and practically stopped playing for the whole month before Wimbledon.

The layoff brought his game back to its peak. Dick whipped U.S. Champion Larsen (6-1, 6-4, 6-4) in the quarterfinals. But his big test did not come until his semi-final match with dogged Herb Flam, another fighter and a player who relies on agility and retrieving rather than power. In twelve meetings, Savitt had never beaten Flam. When Flam won the first set, 6-1, it looked like the same old story. The second set was a backbreaker, 15-13, and Savitt won it after trailing 1-5. After that it was easy (6-3, 6-2). With the added momentum that victory gave to his confidence, and showing never a jot of the center-court jitters that have wrecked many another player at Wimbledon, he breezed past McGregor again in the final, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

Savitt flew home the next day. He had had five solid months of tennis campaigning, all out of the U.S. The Clay Court championships were being played that week in Chicago, and the tennis bigwigs naturally wanted Dick there: the Wimbledon champion would be a big drawing card. He flatly refused to go. He needed a rest, and he knew it. He did not play again until his Davis Cup debut against Japan. Savitt is always edgy before an important match, and, unlike most of the other players, is given to moments of introspection and brooding. Facing a test that should have been no particular source of worry, Dick snapped at Frank Shields, the nonplaying captain: "Don't talk to me before a match."

Says Shields: "Dick is the first great player I've seen to stay close to the top of his game, and stay nervous throughout the match. Most players will be nervous at the start of a match. But they'll shake it. Usually, the sign of a better man will be that he will shake his nervousness off quicker."

Savitt will have a fight on his hands at Forest Hills this week. In the old days there were only three or four really top-notch players. Mulloy told Savitt: "In the '30s, I never worried much about a match in the quarter-finals." Today, says Dick, "you have to worry about a lot of people. One year there might be 20 guys who, if they beat you, you don't feel bad. Last year there were about three for me. This year there's nobody." Dick's worries (in order): 1) Sedgman and Trabert; 2) Larsen, Flam and Talbert; 3) Patty and McGregor. Those seven, along with Savitt, make an imposing list of talent, but a list without standouts.

"I Don't Have to Think." Though Dick worries about his chief opponents, he plays them mostly by instinct and experience. Says he: "You just know, somehow, how to play each guy ... I don't have to think. With Larsen, I just try to overpower him. Flam, I play his forehand. With Sedgman, you have to keep the ball deep, he comes to the net so much. He and Larsen are the quickest. With McGregor, you just can't let him volley. Patty doesn't let you play good-looking tennis. Flam hits those looper balls. Before the war, they played more complete tennis. Schroeder and Kramer played all-court games."

So does Dick Savitt, and, win or lose next week, he will put on the kind of dogged, fighting display that brought the crowds out to watch the Tildens, Johnstons, Vineses, Perrys and Budges in their prime. Savitt's game is the "big" game, and he is the kind of player who can never be counted out until the final point. Savitt is a fighter, an attacker, and that's what the crowds like to see.

And win or lose, Savitt is one of the men Frank Shields is counting on to bring the Davis Cup back from Australia. Sweden, with tough Lennart Bergelin (who gave the Australians a scare by winning both his singles matches last year), must be coped with this December before the U.S. can meet the Australians. Savitt has beaten Bergelin, and he has proved that he has the Australians' number.After the matches with Canada, Shields said: "All I know for certain right now is that Dick Savitt will play singles, and Tony Trabert will be my left court man in doubles." Shields, by this statement, reiterated what the other players already knew: Dick Savitt, indeed, is the man to beat.

* The only players who have won all three: Fred Perry (1934), Don Budge (1938).

*Taken, this week, from the U.S. when Sedgman & McGregor and Don Candy & Mervyn Rose made it an all-Australian final.

* Exception: Trabert, 20, who was dropped last week from the Naval Reserve (seaman) because his tennis duties kept him from attending drill, is now subject to the draft.

* Australia's Adrian Quist is one of many old hands credited with having revamped Savitt's game. Savitt says he is almost entirely self-taught. "Quist and I played once or twice, and of course it helps to play with a guy, but he never gave me any coaching."

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