At Forest Hills

U. S. tennis last week reached its grand finale for 1933, the National Singles Championship at Forest Hills, L. I. But that was not the only interesting event going on there. Strolling between grandstand, clubhouse and stadium courts, spectators could see numerous middle-aged and even elderly gentlemen playing tennis, and very good tennis, on the outer courts. This was the Veterans' Championship, for players over 45. In the final, onlookers beheld one of the most extraordinary tennists in the U. S., Clarence M. Charest, win the title for the third time, against S. Jarvis Adams, an unseeded oldster from Port Washington, L. I., 6-4, 6-4.

Twenty-three years ago, a hunting companion shot off Clarence Charest's right arm. Forced to give up his favorite game, baseball, he took up tennis. When serving, he holds the ball in his hand, throws it up with the same motion of his arm that carries the racquet back, whacks it smartly with an efficient tackhammer motion. He keeps a second ball in his pocket, a third on the ground back of baseline. He rarely needs the second ball. Now 50, an able Washington lawyer, he won the Veterans' Championship for the first time in 1929. He took up golf six years ago, won a club tournament two years later.

Two rounds of the Men's Singles Championship at Forest Hills passed by without any really disturbing developments. Then in the third round young Frankie Parker, boy-wonder of U. S. tennis for the last two years, lost to Keith Gledhill. Parker's coach. Mercer Beasley, characteristically explained Gledhill's good placing by saying: "Parker was out of position." Sweating hard but still grinning like a satyr, George Lott lost to Ryosuke Nunoi, 5-7, 1-6, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2. Nunoi, with better ground-strokes than other recent Japanese players, was so ineffective for the first two sets that Lott, who pays more attention to his bridge than his tennis, grew careless. A reverse twist serve that nearly hit Nunoi in the eye made the crowd laugh, made Nunoi serious. His victory was the beginning of a series of events which made the crowd remember that, even in tennis, anything can happen. Next day, Wilmer Allison, second ranking U. S. player, No. 2 singles man on the Davis Cup team, came out on the courts with Adrian Quist, a white-toothed young Australian known mainly as a competent doubles player. Quist won, in straight sets, and the crowd moved from the stadium to the clubhouse court to see a match between tall Ellsworth Vines, the defending champion, and spry, 5-ft.-3-in. Bryan ("Bitsy") Grant, who used to be Hines's doubles partner at North Carolina. Vexed at being seeded tenth, with Parker fifth, Grant was out to make the U. S. L. T. A. see its mistake. Vines, list less and unsure as he has been most of this season, started making errors at once, but as the play wore on it was not Vines's errors so much as the hornet-like persistence of Grant that amazed the crowd. He dived all over the court to make "impossible" returns. He served with smash and fire. He played Vines's low backhand, the champion's weakest spot. A wary change of pace made Vines, trying to get his timing right, sadly shake his head. Score for grass-stained little Grant: 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. There were no further surprises until the semi-finals were over, suddenly and decisively eliminating the last U. S. players and presenting a final between Jack Crawford of Australia and Fred Perry of England. It was the first all-British final in Forest Hills history, the first all-foreign final since the one between Borotra and LaCoste in 1926. Perry, son of a London M. P., a tennis player who dresses as well as he makes his shots, had difficulty with Gledhill in the fourth round. When the set-score was 1-2 against him, his confrere F. H. D. Wilde asked him if he wanted anything. ''Two sets," said Perry. He got them. Next day he polished off Adrian Quist. Willowy Lester Stoefen, 6 ft. 3 in. Californian--who had put out tiny Grant in a comical quarterfinal during which Grant spent most of the time rolling on the court trying to retrieve Stoefen's blistering drives--wilted completely to Perry, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2. Crawford had had difficulty with no one except Sidney Wood, whom he played in the fourth round. A sedate, almost portly young man, looking much older than his 25 years, Crawford was trying to add the U. S. title to the three others--Australian, French, All-England--that he had already won this year, for a sweep as clean and unprecedented as Bobby Jones's golf record of 1930. By the time he reached the final it looked as though, with a game distinguished by tactical authority and mature, practiced perfection in backcourt stroking, he would surely do it. Immaculate and chipper, Perry dashed off the first set, 6-3. The crowd applauded and waited for Crawford to warm up. Playing on his baseline instead of behind it, gaining invaluable split seconds by taking Perry's shots just before the top of the bounce, stinging his steady backhanders into Perry's farthest corner, Crawford worked along sedately in the second set while his opponent's tension mounted with the score. At 11-all, Perry made a double fault that unraveled his nerves long enough for Crawford to break through on the next point, then win the set on his own serve. A long second set is most valuable to win. At 4-all and 30-40 in the third, Perry watched an easy lob drop, decided it was out, turned to hear the linesman call it good. A few moments later, Crawford had the set. With judicial composure he strolled to the marquee where his plump wife was smiling, chatted for ten minutes, while Perry went to change his flannels for ducks that would flap less in the wind. With a crowd to watch him, Perry, like Borotra, gives an impression of being debonair, lighthearted, only incidentally concerned with winning. In reality, even more than most crack players, he is deadly serious about tennis. Determined to win one important championship in 1933, he had trained a whole year for last week's final. Crawford, despite his sturdy appearance, was last week suffering from the poor condition which has been widespread among top tennis players in 1933. He had had too much championship tennis. He was too nervous to sleep before the semi-finals : he suffered from night sweats, a twisted knee and palpitations of the heart. After the rest, during which Crawford admitted to his doctor that he felt dizzy. Perry ran out on the court apparently fresher than when the match began. He ran off three games, his flat drives equaling anyone's for speed. Crawford let him blaze out the set at love. In the last set, Crawford's gesture of patting his chest as though his heart or his lungs hurt him, became more noticeable. He managed to break through Perry's serve in the third game and then suddenly the deliberate manner that had seemed to indicate a carefully controlled supply of reserve energy became an expression of utter fatigue. Perry, dancing around the court, barely able to wait for the ball-boys to furnish ammunition for his serve, smashed through four more games for set, match and title--the first an English player has won in the U. S. since Hugh Lawrence Doherty, 30 years ago.

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