At Wimbledon

Bunny Austin of England, playing in flannel shorts and white socks, beat Keith Gledhill in three sets. Vivian McGrath of Australia who holds his racket with both hands for backhands, surprised his Davis Cup teammates by losing to Harry Lee of England. Ellsworth Vines twisted his ankle but proved it was nothing serious by making short work of little Ryusaka Miki of Japan. Next day Lester Stoefen of Texas and George Patrick Hughes of Ireland defeated Lee and Clifford Sutter, respectively. Little Henri Cochet. who had been riding a bicycle to harden his leg muscles, did amazingly well for an oldster of 31 but when he played Vines in the semifinal, he lost to him for the third time in a row. In the other bracket Jack Crawford of Australia beat Jiroh Satdh.

Matches like these--to say nothing of the coat with a fur collar which Queen Mary wore on even the warmest days-- gave spectators at the All-England tennis tournament last week enough to look at before the final. But it was the final, between Vines and Crawford, with Vines favored to win, that produced the longest, loudest cheers that anyone could remember at Wimbledon.

A match between strong servers with comparatively weak backhands, it followed the pattern that everyone expected until the very last game. Vines, his serves scarring the turf, seldom lost more than a point or two in his service games; sometimes he won without using more than four balls. Even when after winning the first he dropped the second and third sets, he seemed clearly in control of the match, waiting for Crawford to tire. When he came out for the fourth with a new racket and began to hit his flat drives even harder than before, it looked more than ever as though Crawford was on the run. When Vines took the set and they started the last one with 23 games each, the crowd of 20,000 scarcely dared to breathe. Each man won his serve until the tenth game, Vines easily, Crawford after thrice being within a point of losing. Then with the score 4-5 against him, Vines began confidently to serve again.

Crawford's first return was a sliced backhand to Vines's baseline. Vines netted. On the next point, Crawford blocked the serve. Vines drove to the back hand corner and Crawford lobbed so skilfully that, trapped as he ran in, Vines could barely get back in time to push the ball weakly into the net. At 0-30, Vines served one fault and Crawford, forcing the rally on his second ball, passed him at the net. Vines was astounded. He shambled back to the baseline, served once more, netted Crawford's return to end the match --4-6, 11-9, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4.

First British subject to win at Wimble don since Gerald Patterson in 1922, Craw ford last week clearly made himself the tennis player of the year. His victory over Vines was only a little more alarming, from the point of view of U. S. chances in the Davis Cup, than his defeat of Cochet in the French hard court championships a month ago. Red-faced, beefy, tireless and, except for the fact that his backhand is more defensive than a world-champion's should be. without a noticeable weakness on the court, he used to lose his matches with his temper until a year or so ago. Last winter, grown calmer and more wily, he won both of Australia's major tournaments, beating Vines in the Victorian championship at Melbourne.

Winning the women's championship for the sixth time as everyone knew she would, Helen Wills Moody had two alarming moments. One was when an awning caught fire while she was playing the semifinals. The second and much more dreadful one came next day when she lost a set --her first, in tournament singles, since 1927--to young Dorothy Round, England's second ranking player, who last spring refused to enter the French championships lest she have to play a match on Sunday. Score of the Moody victory--by far her hardest match since she last played Suzanne Lenglen--was 6-4, 6-8, 6-3.

Doubles champions at Wimbledon last week were: Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon; Elizabeth Ryan and Mme Rene Mathieu; Hilda Krahwinkel and Baron Gottfried Von Cramm.

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