A World and

A World and--

William T. ("Big Bill") Tilden, perched securely atop the tennis world these several years, looked down beneath him and selected ten players who seemed to him to reach upwards nearest to the judgment seat: 1) Vincent Richards, 2) William M. Johnston, 3) Rene La Coste, France, 4) Gerald L. Patterson, Australia, 5) Manuel Alonso, Spain, 6) Pat O'hara Wood, Australia, 7) Jean Borotra, France, 8) Howard Kinsey, 9) Henri Cochet, France, 10) Baron de Morpurgo, Italy.

The rest of the tennis world cogitated. Surely Tilden had extended some courtesies in this ranking. "De Morpurgo before Wallace Johnson? Before Colonel Kingscote of England? Patterson before Alonso, before Borotra?" Well, perhaps. Tilden had played all these men. He knew the talk. Moreover, Tilden gave reasons, and then suggested that the list was "far from accurate."

What none would dispute though many smiled over was the good-humored, necessary, yet quaint omission of the writer's name from the whole consideration. There was a tennis world--and Tilden.