Wightman Cup

Mrs. Dorothy C. Shepherd-Barron was captain; her civil-engineer husband accompanied the British Wightman Cup team as coach and chaperon. Mrs. Eileen Bennett Whittingstall, once the best woman tennis player in England, was still the prettiest. Dorothy Round and little Phyllis Mudford, whom no British player beat last year, had never played in the U. S. before. Betty Nuthall, plumper and more jolly than ever, was the team's No. i. They arrived in the U. S. three weeks ago, last week at Forest Hills lost the Wightman Cup to a U. S. team five matches to two.

The first day, her fingernails red and shiny as her racket strings, Helen Wills Moody played Phyllis Mudford. In a match against Mrs. Moody, almost every woman player looks as inefficient as Mrs. Moody would look if she were playing one of the top ten men. She netted one shot in the first set, played the Mudford backhand when she needed a point, won, 6-1, 6-4. Helen Jacobs has not been playing so well as usual this year; Mrs. Moody beat her 6-0, 6-0 a fortnight ago. When Helen Jacobs beat Betty Nuthall 8-6, 6-4, by steady application of chop-strokes, critics could see that Betty Nuthall's game had not improved much either, made a good guess as to what would happen the next day when she played Mrs. Moody.

The best match of the day was the last. Mrs. Lawrence A. Harper, a slim, Indian-looking lady, like Mrs. Moody and Miss Jacobs a Californian, gave Dorothy Round a round beating--6-3, 4-6, 9-7.

The U. S. needed one more match and got it the next day when Helen Jacobs, wearing a transparent skirt and an intermittent frown, chopped and drove at Phyllis Mudford's weak backhand till she won, 6-4, 6-2. The match between Helen Moody and Betty Nuthall was nothing like the one they played in 1929, when Mrs. Moody decided the Wightman Cup series by winning 8-6, 8-6. Last week, they played more craftily, put less pace on their shots. Betty Nuthall won the first game at love, held her own till the seventh game when she made four double faults. This calamity broke the continuity of her game; she lost the set and match 6-4, 6-2.

U. S. women's doubles teams never seem to realize their potentialities. England won both doubles matches.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.