At Wimbledon

Red-haired Maurice McLoughlin was obviously a "comet." Sad, sly little Henri Cochet, with rings under his eyes, is a "wizard." Tilden, tall, thin, dramatic, made an almost funnypaper contrast with William Johnston, short, thin, efficient: they were "Big Bill" and "Little Bill." Last week the galleries at Wimbledon, after watching some tennis as great as Wimbledon ever saw, felt around for a nickname for its exponent, a lanky, lazy-looking California boy who had come over to play in his first "world championship."

He, 20-year-old Ellsworth Vines Jr. of Pasadena, got ready for Wimbledon by losing his match to an obscure Australian in the London Championships. He beat the same Australian, Harry Hopman, in Wimbledon's second round, but he did it without vehemence, the way he won his other early matches. He slouched about the grounds, sprawled in locker-room chairs, apparently forgetful of the fact that he was the U. S. singles champion and therefore the most exciting entrant in the tournament with the possible exception of Henri Cochet, who was put out in the second round. When all the other U. S. players including Sidney B. Wood Jr. the defending champion, had been eliminated, Vines strolled out to play his semi-final match against Jack Crawford of Australia.

It was a dark afternoon. A grey drizzle made the court slippery and the bad footing seemed to bother Crawford. It did not bother Vines. After a week of good but not brilliant tennis, he suddenly found his game. His backhand, weak the day before, was suddenly a magnificent offensive stroke. His drives lashed the uttermost corners of Crawford's back court. Crawford said afterward that Vines's first serve "seemed to hit the court the same instant it left the racket." Vines followed it to the net and smashed Crawford's returns so hard that the ball kicked up tufts of grass. Crawford put socks over his shoes in the second set. Like his gestures with his racket, it did no good. When Vines had won, 6-2, 6-1, 6-3, he remarked: "It was my one game in a year. I wish I could always hit like that."

Vines was mistaken. In the other half of a polyglot semifinal, an elegant little Englishman, Bunny Austin, had beaten an acrobatic little Japanese, Jiro Sato. Against Austin, Vines was just as good as he had been against Crawford. Their match was over in 45 minutes, 6-4, 6-2, 6-0. Austin watched Vines's last serve, an ace, go past, then ran up to shake hands. Said he: "I couldn't play against that. . . ."

Any women's singles championship, when Helen Wills Moody is playing in it, follows a set pattern. When Helen Jacobs is playing in it also, the pattern is usually symmetrical. At Wimbledon last week, on the side of the draw that contained Betty Nuthall and Mme Rene Mathieu, Helen Jacobs in the semi-finals met the French champion who had beaten Betty Nuthall the day before. She won her match, 7-5, 6-1. Suzanne Lenglen who had just flown over from Paris and who said she planned to play exhibition tennis this summer, watched Mrs. Moody, who has not lost a set in competition since 1927, win her fifth Wimbledon championship two days later, 6-3, 6-1.

Wimbledon men's doubles champions last week, by beating Fred Perry & Pat Hughes of England, 6-0, 4-6, 3-6, 7-5, 7-5, were the two spry seasoned Frenchmen who helped win France the Davis Cup in 1927, and may help again this year--Jean Borotra & Jacques Brugnon.

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