Davis Cup

Just before the first match in the Davis Cup finals between Germany and the U. S., a clumsy waiter delighted the crowd in Roland Garros Stadium. Paris, last week. He fell over some chairs in the grandstand, noisily spilled a tray of orangeade. The crowd, largely composed of Parisian Germans and Parisian Frenchmen who wanted Germany to win because it might make it easier for France in the challenge round, was delighted also by the next thing that happened. Baron Gottfried von Cramm, a handsome stocky young German, beat tall, rangy, raven-haired Francis Xavier Shields of New York, 7-5, 5-7, 6-4, 8-6. This unexpected victory--one more in the record of a team that had astounded tennis critics by beating England in the European zone finals--gave an unexpected importance to Henry Ellsworth Vines Jr.'s first singles match, against Dr. Daniel Prenn of Berlin.

Vines, more assured than ever since winning the Wimbledon championship last month, played dazzling tennis for two sets. Prenn got three games in each. Tennis critics, who expect a player with a two-set lead to loaf a little but not let down entirely, were baffled by the third set. Vines dawdled about the court with a pleasant grin while Prenn won six games in a row. When Vines, still loafing, lost the first three games in the third set, it looked to the crowd as though Prenn, the most tenacious tennist in Europe, was going to do the impossible as he has often done before. Vines removed his white flannel cap and with it his amiable smile. Looking serious, he began putting his weight behind his serve, pounding his drives to within a foot of the baseline. He ran out set & match 6-4.

Even with von Cramm's victory over Shields, the first day's play left the U. S. in a commanding position because Germany has never been able to cook up a first-rate doubles team. If Wilmer Allison (Austin, Tex.) and John Van Ryn (East Orange, N. J.) could win their match against Prenn & von Cramm, all the U.S. needed was one more singles match and Vines was almost sure to get it against von Cramm. For the doubles, the Bouhana courts were slower than ever, after a heavy rain, but it made no difference to Allison & Van Ryn who have played abroad long enough to know all about soft French courts and slow French tennis balls.* Aided by superb teamwork and Prenn's double faults, they won what turned out to be the deciding match in straight sets--6-3, 6-4. 6-1.

A line decision in favor of Vines when he was playing von Cramm the next day annoyed the gallery, caused shouts of "Lo-carno!" It made no difference in the final result--3-6, 6-3, 9-7, 6-3, for Vines. Dr. Daniel Prenn, who looks a little like Walter Hagen and plays tennis the way Hagen plays golf, with imperturbable determination, gave Shields his second beating in the last match of the series--6-1, 6-0, 6-8, 6-2.

The victory over Germany set the stage for a Davis Cup challenge round in which the U. S. had a better chance than it has had since 1927, when Cochet. La Coste and Borotra beat William Tatem Tilden II, his dear friend Francis Hunter and William Johnston. Even supposing that Cochet was as good as ever, of which no body who saw him lose in Wimbledon's second round could be quite sure, the rest of the team was almost certainly weaker this year. Captain and Reserve Singles Player Rene Lacoste, who has been trying to make a comeback this year, caught tonsilitis last week, persuaded jolly Jean Borotra to take his place. Borotra still insisted he was not good enough; there was a chance that young Christian Boussus might play one match at least. That left the doubles up to Cochet and Jacques Brugnon, who were fairly likely to lose to Van Ryn and Allison. If Cochet & Brugnon lost, the U. S. needed two singles matches out of four. Whether it would get them depended mostly on tall, ambling, white-capped, 20-year-old Henry Ellsworth Vines Jr. who, since the summer of 1930, has played the world's most startling tennis.

Henry Ellsworth Vines Jr. began waving a tennis racquet when he was 3 but he did not really take the game seriously till he was about 8. When he was a freshman at the Huntington Park, Pasadena, High School, Mercer Beasley, famed coach of Tulane University tennis teams, saw him play a match, decided his game was worth developing. Vines went east for the first time in 1930. The way he beat Francis Hunter in the finals of the Metropolitan grass court championship that year was only less surprising than the way he lost to Sidney Wood in the finals at Seabright--when Wood, seeing the one glaring weakness in Vines's game, fed him slow balls for three sets. Since then, Vines has learned how to handle slow balls as well as fast ones. Last summer he won every tournament he played in, wound up with the U. S. championship at Forest Hills. This year he set out to perfect his chop, to be as versatile as Tilden. Not until the last rounds at Wimbledon did he get back firmly on his driving game. Then he beat Jack Crawford of Australia and Henry Wilfred ("Bunny") Austin of England on successive days with tennis that even Wimbledon has never seen surpassed.

What galleries at Wimbledon and else where like most about Vines's game is its blinding speed. His cannonball serve, which a good many players frankly say they cannot see, his forehand, which he hits with a flat racket off his left foot, are, like all first-rate tennis accomplishments, based on years of tedious practice which mediocre players like to think they do not need. To make practice less tedious, Vines two years ago thought up a game called "Errors." If he was trying to im prove his backhand, his opponent gave him no other kind of shots. Vines counted a point every time he made the shot, a point against him when he did not, ten points a game. Even in important matches, Vines, if he gets a set or two ahead and is reason ably sure of winning, will stop trying for points, try to improve his shots. The best scoring shot in his game is his smash ; he hits overhead from any part of the court. His forehand has very little top spin. It crosses the net low, usually lands very near the baseline.

Like many persons who possess abundant nervous energy, he comports himself, away from tennis courts, in a manner almost painfully lethargic. Vines ambles when he walks. His frame, more knobby at the knees and elbows than an athlete's should be, presents an awkward aspect. Languid even in responding to a new environment. Vines maintained his habit of retiring and rising early last week. In Paris, he investigated neither the Louvre nor the Folies Bergere. In London, he ordered new and wider trousers which fit him better than his old ones.

On his travels, Vines carries his rackets and two of his flannel caps in a new leather case. More extraordinary even than his caps--which are already creating a vogue like the Helen Wills eyeshade-- are what Vines has inside his size 10 tennis shoes--a pair of arch preservers. His rackets--he uses 35 a year--are 13 1/2 oz. with a 4 7/8 in. handle. For diversion, he likes to polish or scuttle about in his new Ford coupe. His best friend is one Carey MacPherson, who plays mediocre tennis, owns part of a Pasadena gas station. He is engaged to marry a Miss Verle Low. Vines's father owns nine meat markets in Seattle and elsewhere. His mother (separated) has a job in a Pasadena department store (F. C. Nash Co.). Remembering how her son wheedled money to buy tennis rackets, she says, "Oh, my! I hate to think about it.'' Vines now earns his own rackets as clerk in the San Francisco branch of Logan & Bryan (stockbrokers). Next year he may earn more by becoming a tennis professional. A high-school student of journalism, he hopes some day to write advertising for his father's markets.

Although he left his job to play tennis abroad this year, no one has yet accused Vines of being a ''tennis bum''--i.e.. an amateur who makes a living at the game. The need for making a delicate distinction between players who are "bums" and players who are not, arose again last week in a dispute between officials of and 14 entrants in the Seabright, N. J., invitation tournament. Like most clubs which hold invitation tennis tournaments, Seabright Lawn Tennis & Cricket Club offers to house and feed competitors. In the old days, before tennis became overrun with characters whose social graces approximate those of young public links golfers, club members fell over each other to get visiting players as house guests. Since last year the Seabright club has not offered to house and feed competitors for the duration of the tournament but only so long as they remain in it. This places what amounts to a monetary premium upon winning. It also deprives players, who would otherwise when beaten sit about the club playing bridge and watching their friends play tennis, of a pleasant week of loafing. In a telegram to the Seabright officials, 14 seeded players voiced their dissatisfaction with the arrangement:

"We feel that Seabright is taking a mercenary outlook on the game and is doing much to impair the desirable spirit of amateurism. As your guests we feel that we should be treated as such and that your failure to do so in the past has shown a lack of regard for the players.

"Yours is the only known club in this country acting in such a fashion and we feel that your future tournaments will be more successful and our stay with you more pleasant if you will adopt a different attitude toward the men who play the game."

(Signed)

Eugene McCauliff

Berkeley Bell

W. F. Coen Jr.

Joseph Coughlin

H. M. Culley

Bryan Grant

Keith Gledhill

J. Gilbert Hall

Jake H. Hess Jr.

David N. Jones

Jerome Lang

Richard Murphy

Julius Seligson

Clifford Sutter

The Seabright Tennis & Cricket Club suggested that players who were dissatisfied with its hospitality could withdraw. The 14 players "respectfully" withdrew.

*There are no good turf courts in France. The courts at Roland Garros Stadium, designed by Charles Bouhana, are of red clay much like En-Tout-Cas ("all weather") courts which are made in the U. S. and elsewhere by En-Tout-Cas Co. Tennis ball specifications for size, weight, thickness of cover are the same all over the world; but because most European players prefer a slower bounce, Dunlap Co., which makes most tennis balls abroad, uses a rubber composition that gives a less lively bounce than the composition used by U. S. manufacturers. European tennis balls last a little longer; before tournaments they are refrigerated.

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