Davis Cupmen

Long after the match was over they were talking about it on the veranda of the casino and over at the Greenbrier, using what they knew about the temperaments of the players, as much as their memory of what they had seen, to understand what had happened. It was an episode pregnant with questions of sportsmanship and it took place under the eyes of Joseph W. Wear, chairman of the Davis Cup Committee, in a quarter final match of the Mason & Dixon tournament at White Sulphur Springs, just three days before the 1930 Davis Cup team was to be selected.

The match was hotly exciting. For five sets, less one point--a point that was never played--Berkeley Bell, agile, 125-lb. player from Dallas, Tex. had run after the hard forehand drives of Francis Townsend Hunter, longtime Davis cupman, No. 2 ranking player. Hunter lost the first set, but took the next two. Bell was coming up to the net in the fourth--hazardous tactics against anyone so accurate as Hunter--and even in the backcourt his legs pumped so fast that he made gets that seemed impossible. For such short legs, the pace was hard, and while Hunter was obviously campaigning to make them cave in he seemed, like the gallery, to admire their staunchness. Once, after a hard return, Bell fell heavily in the forecourt and Hunter gave him a "sitter"--lobbed the ball so as to give him time to get up. Bell got up, and smashed the sitter, won the point. The gallery was surprised but thought it understood. In the excitement of his fall, Bell had evidently not realized Hunter had done him a courtesy. Hunter looked grim after that. Bell was holding an edge in the set, his legs were giving in at last--he was limping a little, but he won, 11-9.

In the fifth set at 5-6 and match point in Bell's favor Hunter was throwing up the ball to serve when the Texan, with a faint moan, fell over on his face. Howard Voshell, the referee, carried him to the sidelines, and Hunter's trainer worked for a minute to loosen the cramp which Bell indicated as having stricken his left thigh. The crowd expected him to come out of the club after a rest and go on with the match, but Hunter ended that possibility. Angry, quiet, decisive, he picked up his rackets, threw his white sweater over his shoulders, marched into the locker room, claimed the match by default. Bell had quit, he pointed out, while he was ready to go on. Officials conferred hastily, upheld his claim.

When John Van Ryn beat Hunter next day, some spectators said Hunter deserved it after taking the Bell match that way--who ever heard of a decent player claiming a default when his opponent had hurt himself? Others supported Hunter's own claim--that he had been playing for Bell's legs, that Bell could only beat these tactics by taking a rest. Beside, they said, how could Bell expect lenience after what he did to that sitter?

After Van Ryn had beaten Wilmer Allison in the finals and the Davis Cup team had been picked, fresh arguments broke out. Van Ryn, Allison, George Lott, John Doeg--all under 25--were put on the team, with William Tatem Tilden II (now in Europe) still a possibility (he says now he does not want to play again). But Bell too had been picked--he would go along as a substitute.

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