Tennis

Flip! The first service was spun. Into action sprang Helen Wills and Mrs. J. Saunders Taylor in the 41st annual women's championship tournament at Forest Hills, L. I. Twenty-two minutes later they shook hands, Miss Wills a 6-0, 6-1 victor over Mrs. Taylor.

John Van Ryn spent the spring at Princeton because it was his senior year; George M. Lott went abroad on the Davis Cup squad, played tennis. Yet Van Ryn extended Lott to five sets last week before Lott turned Van Ryn into a pillar of fault, ran out the match, won his first leg on the Newport (R. I.) Casino singles cup. The same afternoon Lott, paired with John (California) Doeg, bested Van Ryn and Wilmer (Texas) Allison in the doubles final. Lott may play freshman tennis next spring at Brown University, which last week admitted him to its rolls.

Two great racqueteers have alienated public favor when it might have done them the most good. One was Vincent Richards, onetime junior singles champion, onetime Davis Cup defender, whose attempt to justify his turning professional brought forth lame excuses, and turned away many who otherwise might have given him their support. The other was William Tatem Tilden II, who last week was found guilty of breaking the player-writer rule of the U. S. L. T. A. and punished by indefinite banishment from amateur tennis.

Just prior to a meeting of tennis moguls in the Hotel Vanderbilt, Manhattan, Tilden made two mistakes: 1) He told the tycoons that business prevented his defending his case, which inevitably was inferred to be a plea of guilty; and 2) he released for publication a letter which he wrote to President Samuel H. Collom, of the U. S. L. T. A., wherein he said, among other things, that he "did not intentionally violate or attempt to evade the spirit or letter of the [player-writer] rule and to the best of my knowledge articles under dispute do not violate the rule." This constitutes either falsehood or an anaemic revival of his 1925 alibi, when he was in a similar difficulty for a similar offense.

The standing of Tilden would seem to be: he is out of tennis, knows it; he may seek reinstatement, but an application for reinstatement would be taken by many to be merely a gesture which would give the U. S. L. T. A. the choice of reversing its stand or of remaining adamant, thus making Tilden appear a martyr. Yet it is unlikely that Tilden cares either way: there are thousands to be made in professional tennis, not a little to be made in exploiting his reputation. Thus, without honor, passes the man who for six years dominated world tennis, who for eight years wielded a sceptral "bat" over the American net game.