Rain at Forest Hills

Frankie Parker is a 19-year-old tennist from Milwaukee. Two years ago, his promise made such a profound impression upon Mercer Beasley that that famed coach not only undertook to improve his game but legally adopted him, sent him to Lawrenceville. Last week, at Forest Hills, N. Y., Frankie Parker played Champion Fred Perry in the fourth round of the National Men's Singles Championship and lost, 4-6, 2-6, 0-6. Other things being equal, he should therewith have disappeared from public notice. Instead it rained for four days in a row and the U. S. sports public was pestered with the details of one of the weirdest contests ever held, that of Frankie Parker v. Frankie Parker's forehand.

It began when the New York Herald Tribune ran a two-column story to the effect that Frankie Parker had decided not to return to school. Instead, he would spend a winter in Bermuda, where Mercer Beasley teaches tennis. Said Frankie Parker: "You know what my forehand shot is or rather what it isn't. . . . I figure that I can't get anywhere unless I give more time to the game. . . ." It continued the next day, with a letter from Holcombe Ward, chairman of the U. S. Davis Cup Committee, urging Frankie Parker not to give up school. Said Committeeman Ward: "It seems to me that a good education will be of benefit to you throughout life. . . ." It reached a climax with Mercer Beasley's sagest contribution to the uproar: "Frankie's got a swelled head. I tried to make him use the circle swingback but he wouldn't listen to me. . . ." It approached solution when it became Frankie Parker's turn to serve again and he pompously announced: "I'm going to resume my studies in Bermuda . . . and kill two birds with one stone. . . . It was very nice of Mr. Ward to write me. . . ."

Next day the sun came out and the strange epic of Frankie Parker's adolescent turmoils vanished from sports pages, editorials and columns as quickly as the puddles on the West Side Tennis Club's courts. Frank Shields, playing better than ever before in his life, took one set and twice missed the point that would have given him another before he lost to Champion Perry, 4-6, 6-4, 6-8, 0-6. Three days after the schedule had called for the championships to end, Perry, Allison, Budge, Grant, Wood remained in the men's single; Jacobs and Fabyan in the women's.

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