Amateurs Abroad

Few tourists, except retired multimillionaires, could ever find time or money to travel so high, wide and handsomely as 29-year-old Tennis Star Victor Seixas (No. 2 m U.S. rankings), who is semi-retired but not rich. In the past twelve months, Tourist Seixas has visited (in the order of his major appearances) Miami, Palm Beach, Havana, Bermuda, London, Wimbledon, Montreal, Southampton Newport, Boston, Forest Hills, Los Angeles Mexico City, Honolulu, Auckland and Melbourne. A trip to South America in 1948, to South Africa in 1950 and wartime duty in Japan (as a test pilot for the Air Service Command) round Vic out as a six-continent man. (There has never been a tennis tournament in Antarctica.)

During his past year's globe-trotting Vic took his pretty wife Dolly Ann along got feted in the most fashionable hostelries, was well reimbursed for what few tabs he picked up--and earned no reportable income. Last week Vic and Dolly Ann dropped in at San Juan, Puerto Rico. Also on hand, amidst palm-shrouded splendor, for the first annual Caribe Hilton (Hotel) Invitation Tournament were creaky (39) but top-ranked Gardnar Mulloy, Art Larsen (No. 3) and Billy Talbert (No. 6). As usual, they came to play a little tennis and also just to play. Their daily regimen was elegantly simple: breakfast in bed or on private balconies, sunbathing on the cabana-fringed beach, lunch, a little tennis, more sunbathing, dining & dancing, bed.

Last January, the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association repealed its eight-week-a-year limitation on acceptance of invitation tournament expenses by the U.S.'s star players. Even before, however, gadabouts like Seixas & Co. were not much restricted in their gadding. The U.S.L.T.A.'s "emancipation proclamation" merely changed the text to fit long-existing facts. Whenever the eight weeks' rule was not honored in the breach, it was usually bypassed with exceptions. The tennis tourist's new year-round freedom to live off the fat of many lands will, nonetheless, add many new stops to old itineraries. Davis Cup Team Captain Seixas sees himself as a sort of ambassador. Says he: "You are not playing just for yourself, but for your country."

In San Juan, Ambassador Seixas teamed up with Larsen to beat Mulloy and Talbert, capture the men's doubles title. Then Vic headed off for London again--via Florida, Texas, Rome, Paris and other continental points. Some distant day, when he finally finds his play "slipping," Vic plans to go to work in his father's Philadelphia wholesale plumbing and heating supply company.

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