No Contest

Big Jake Kramer had finally proved that he is the best tennis player going. It was suspiciously close for the first weeks of their nationwide tour, with Big Jake winning one night and Bobby Riggs the next. People began to talk (TIME, March 1). Then Kramer's big service began to come alive.

If Riggs played deep on Kramer's serve, Big Jake put so much angle and spin on the ball that his opponent landed up in the bleachers trying to get his racket on it. If Riggs played in close, Big Jake blasted it straight down the middle. Usually, Kramer won his service in jig time, and then began a long drawn-out battle to crack his opponent's serve. In Memphis last week, a woman spectator began berating Riggs for his ineptness. He waddled toward her with his familiar sailor's roll, racket outstretched handle first, as if to say: "If you think you can beat him, you try it." Kramer beat Riggs, 6-3, 6-4. The score in matches, at week's end: Kramer 39, Riggs 17.

Riggs, who seemed to have cracked under pressure, had won only three matches in the last 27. Says Big Jake, who has collected about $75,000 for his past three months' work: "I'm enjoying this tour. I'd be crazy to say I wasn't enjoying beating Riggs."

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