Budge's Postwar Plan

The gang of U.S. professional tennis players, which has been discombobulated for years, and for years has talked about getting itself organized, last week did something about it. Lieut. Don Budge, with the well-organized pro golf circuit as his model, buttonholed fellow pros in Los Angeles, and sold them a postwar plan: a pro tennis association, with salaried president and press agent, plans for 20 cash-prize tourneys next year.

Then Budge & Co. swung some war-rusty arms for $5,000 and the World's Professional Hard Court Championship.* Fred Perry, short on practice, was a semifinal casualty. So was old Bill Tilden, still the master cut-up at 52; he apologized for not reaching a return with: "God, I'm lazy." Organizer Budge was minus his one-time zingy service. But cocksure little Bobby Riggs, sharp from 18 months of playing tennis at various Navy posts in the Pacific, boasted he was "30 points a game better than ever." By way of proving it, he whipped Budge 9-11, 6-3, 6-2, 6-0 in the singles final.

*The swank Los Angeles Tennis Club setting was a step up from the U.S. pro championship, held last summer in Manhattan, on the miserable Rip's Courts at 39th & Park.

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