Davis Cup

Not since France won the Davis Cup in 1927 has Paris been so excited about the challenge round as it was last week. A crowd of 10,000 filled Roland Garros Stadium so full that when Dwight Filley Davis, U. S. doubles champion (with Holcombe Ward) in 1899-1901. who put up the Davis Cup in 1900, arrived there was no place for him to sit. Instead of being taken to the box occupied by President Albert Lebrun, Mr. Davis vas allowed to sit in a stand reserved for superfluous officials. Irked, he went home after one match.

The centre court at Roland Garros was entirely rebuilt this year, with a red clay surface even slower than before. This tended to lessen the celebrated speed of the No. 1 U. S. singles player. Henry Ellsworth Vines Jr. Combined with the fact that the U. S. team had not been impressive in the final round against Germany, it helped give France some of the confidence it had lost when Rene La Coste announced that he was too sick to play. French newspapers generously warned Vines not to eat pork and cucumber the day before he played Henri Cochet. as he had done before playing Gottfried von Cramm. Vines was not warned about eating cucumbers before his match with Jean Borotra because even the most optimistic Frenchmen took it for granted that Vines would win this match no matter what he ate.

Vines, when he ambled out, seemed to have the same idea. Wearing his white flannel cap, he was as nonchalant as usual against a Borotra who still had his blue beret but seemed to have lost some of the gay bounce that used to go with it. Borotra broke Vines's serve in the first game, rushed the net steadily on his own, hit his volleys crisp and hard. He took the first set 6-4. Borotra waited till Vines had him 4-2 in the third set before he stopped running for hard shots, let Vines have it at 6-3.

When they came out to the court again after the rest, no one would have been much surprised to see Borotra tire or to see Vines's strokes begin to flash and sparkle as they had at Wimbledon. Borotra won the first game on his own. serve. The match stopped while policemen interrupted a fight in the grandstand. Vines won three games. Borotra won them back. Serving at 4-5, Vines slammed his cannonball into the court but the clay made it bounce slowly. At match point, he netted a drive and ran up to the net to shake Borotra's hand just ahead of the crowd that was pouring down from the grandstand to thump Borotra's back.

After the Vines-Borotra match, anything, except a defeat for sad little Henri Cochet, would have been an anticlimax. Rednecked Wilmer Allison of Texas won the first set at f-$. but all he could do after that was to make Cochet run more and rally longer than he likes to before Cochet won. 5-7, 7-5, 7-5, 6-2. In the doubles next day, Allison and his partner John Van Ryn won the first match for the U. S. against Cochet and Jacques ("Toto") Brugnon. but not until Brugnon and Cochet, playing Van Ryn's weak backhand, had evened the match twice. Score: 6-3, 11-13, 7-5, 4~6, 6-4.

Of the two singles matches next day, France needed only one to keep the Cup. The one that France was surest of winning, the match that people had been talking about for weeks, was between Vines and Cochet. Vines won magnificently 4-6, 0-6, 7-5, 8-6, 6-2, but it made no difference. By that time Borotra had beaten Allison in a five-set match that was decided by an historic point.

The point came late in the fifth set. Allison, getting superb angles on his high volleys, had won the first two sets 6-1, 6-3. Borotra, last week as spry at 36 as he used to be when he made a habit of winning the U. S. Indoor Championship, won the next two, 6-4, 6-2. In the final set, Borotra found it necessary to change his shoes three times. The decisive moment came after Allison had had match point twice on his own serve at 5-3 and now had it again on Borotra's at 4-5. Borotra's first serve went in the net. Allison was so sure the second ball was out that he did not bother to return it into court. But the linesman did not call "Faute." Allison was so stunned that of the next eleven points he won only one. Borotra ran out set & match at 7-5. He, used to being called "the bounding Basque," was last week nicknamed "le vieux Reynard," hero of the 1932 matches.

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