Jake on the Attack

"If I ever get him over a barrel," said Big Jake Kramer, "I'll beat him fifty straight matches without easing off." But things didn't work that way. Jake got the jitters in his pro tennis debut at Madison Square Garden, and lost badly to Pro Champ Bobby Riggs (TIME, Jan. 5). In Pittsburgh, Jake caught a cold, and lost again to Bobby. Then Jake got back some of his confidence by winning match No. 3 in Cleveland. Last week, after their tenth match in the tenth city on their U.S. tour, Jake was beginning to look better. Bobby Riggs, however, wasn't yet over any barrel.

At South Orange, N.J., Jake for the first time had played the aggressive "big game" that made him the world's best amateur. Said Jake later: "The audience was down close and I could feel them pulling for me. They rooted me in." He beat Riggs 3-6, 7-5, 6-2. It wasn't a matter of getting wise to Bobby's cagey game, he said, because he always plays his own strength rather than an opponent's weakness. But he did give Riggs credit for one thing: "Bobby is able to adjust himself to bad conditions better than I am . . . especially poor lighting."

Bobby too--who is normally the most self-confident man in the game--had learned to respect his rival. Said he: "I've had to change my game, of course. I like to stay back and wait for the ball but now I have to come up to the net after the serve and meet Jack's attack. Jack's ahead and he's a tough player but I ... still expect to come out ahead." For cocky Bobby Riggs, that was a decidedly modest prediction. With 50-odd matches still to go, the score in matches was Kramer 6, Riggs 4.

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