Money Men

As an amateur, each in his day had been king. Now, as professionals, everybody still wanted to be king. It took amateur tennis' top-drawer West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, N.Y. to get the pros all together last week. The royal dozen of pro tennis and some 40 smaller fry had it out at Forest Hills in the19th national professional tennis championship, and the first one that ever really amounted to anything.

First of the ex-kings to fall was long-faced, impetuous Bill Tilden, whose tennis was good for a 53-year-old but not good enough to beat 30-year-old Wayne Sabin. Sabin advanced to the quarterfinals, there met Britain's onetime Davis Cupper Fred Perry. Falling behind, trigger-tempered Wayne Sabin began swearing and banging balls out of the arena. At one point, Perry stopped the game, announced: "I won't play any more with a man who has such court manners." He was finally persuaded to go on, and lost. In another match, caper-cutting Frank Kovacs, who sometimes tries to outrage his opponents into bad playing, almost came to blows with Welby Van Horn, the defending champ.

After seven days of it, the field was narrowed to cocky little Bobby Riggs and, red-haired Don Budge, who used to be able to beat Riggs at will. Since Budge got out of the Army Air Corps, he and Riggs had crisscrossed the U.S. playing what was also billed as the world's pro championship (TIME, March 18). Riggs had won 24 of their matches; Budge 22.

All through the week at Forest Hills, Budge seemed not to be fighting just his immediate opponent, but also getting his strokes in shape for the finals. When the day came, Riggs unveiled a new, blistering serve that had Budge shaking his head in despair. Riggs seldom tried, a forcing shot, but kept whipping the ball back with exasperating steadiness. Budge became so demoralized in the second set that he served three double faults in one game. The score: 6-3, 6-1, 6-1.

After throwing a quick smile to the strongly pro-Budge crowd of 9,000 in the stands, Champion Bobby Riggs marched out of the stadium with his blonde wife on his arm and lipstick on his face. His week's work had been worth $3,100 in prize money, plus a $500 bet he won on himself.

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