Season in the Sun

As oppressive summer weather dawdled into autumn, the polite plunk of tennis balls could still be heard on the grass courts of eastern country clubs, where tennis came of age. But the tall, tanned young men who had spent the summer putting the touch on tournament committees with their "amateur" expense accounts had almost all gone west and south for a season in the sun.

As usual, the travelers had taken their worst habits with them; they were playing unreliable, unpredictable tennis. Far off form last week, Vic Seixas, the new U.S. champion, was knocked out in the quarter finals of Mexico City's Pan-American tournament. (The week before, Seixas had been beaten by Mexico's Gustavo Palafox in Davis Cup competition.) Temperamental Art Larsen let Mexican officiating get under his skin, lost out in the semifinals. Only Tony Trabert held his own against the mediocre competition, and at week's end he won the title.

Home in Manhattan, the Davis Cup selection committee tried to forget that he, too, is a thin-skinned performer. (Only last month at Forest Hills, a loud American crowd bothered him so much that he blew right out of the national championships.) Solemnly, the committee announced that, for all their faults, Tony and Vic are the best around. With Inter collegiate Champion Ham Richardson and Captain Billy Talbert, they will be sent on one more trip to Australia in one more effort to bring home the Davis Cup.

All but convinced that this year's best is not good enough, the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association is trying to build for the future. A couple of promising teenagers will travel with the Davis Cup team just for experience; a group of other youngsters, coached by crafty old-Pro Jack Kramer, has been learning the pitfalls of the summer-tournament circuit at home.

Those pitfalls are likely to turn America's new crop of amateurs into the same sort of semipros who have been disappointing tennis fans for years. Writes one-time Davis Cup Player Sidney Wood Jr.: "A player known to have no other source of income, can . . . travel the tournament trail in relative luxury throughout South America, Europe, Egypt, India and most of the U.S. ... He is often able to set aside some rainy-day savings gleaned from an expense account well in excess of the legally prescribed $15 daily."

Never properly promoted, never popular enough to be a national sport, U.S. amateur tennis remains a subsidized pastime, the responsibility of the nation's country and tennis clubs. A tournament traveler needs more than a smooth supply of shots; he must also get along with the station-wagon set. "You don't have to worry about my boys," Coach Kramer told the U.S.L.T.A. "They dress right, act right and talk right." Tennis fans were happy to hear that the boys play well, too.

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