Bums' Rush?

In the spring of 1928, rangy, left-handed John Hope Doeg, offshoot of California's famed tennis-playing Suttons, quit his studies at Stanford to tune up with the U. S. Davis Cup squad. Conservative President Sumner Hardy of the California Tennis Association huffed & puffed and finally howled that the Davis Cup Committee was "making bums out of young tennis players."

Since that day tennis has made out of many a young player just what Mr. Hardy howled about. Few top-notch tennis amateurs have the time or inclination to get a full-time job nowadays. While the players of the pre-Tilden era were content with a summer junket to swank Eastern tournaments (and a trip abroad if they were very, very good), most of the present top-notch racketeers have to play tennis nine months out of the year, to keep up with the field.

In the summer it is Sea Bright, Southampton, Newport, Rye--staying at the best hotels or draw-my-bath private homes. In the winter it is Palm Beach, Bermuda, Jamaica. In the spring Pinehurst, Asheville, Hot Springs--guests of hotel managements that occasionally offer more attractive bait for players than mere traveling expenses and $30-a-day suites. Some tournament promoters have been known to offer lump-sum traveling expenses that could take the player to Buenos Aires and back. Now & then a well-heeled promoter has even been known to get around the amateur code by making a friendly little wager--for instance, a $500 bet that the player cannot jump over his tennis racket.

Last year the United States Lawn Tennis Association, embarrassed by European criticism of U. S. "shamateurism" and by U. S. gossip about "professional amateurs," decided to stop these abuses, announced that it intended to clarify and enforce during the 1939 season its moldy Expense Regulations and Eight Weeks Rule (no player shall receive traveling and/or living expenses for more than eight weeks in any one year). Last week the U. S. L. T. A. surprised the tennis world by suspending from amateur competition pending a hearing two of its most famed players: square-headed Gene Mako, doubles partner of Donald Budge on three Davis Cup teams, and ornery Wayne Sabin, ninth in world ranking this year. Sabin, son of a Portland, Ore. house painter, played in 25 tournaments in the past twelve months.

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