Women's Wimbledon

Fortnight ago when the top-ranking tennis players of the world assembled at Wimbledon for the 58th All-England championships, most international of all tournaments, the spotlight played on the distaff side. So completely has California's red-haired Donald Budge dominated men's tennis in the past year that no one mentioned the possibility of his defeat. But for women it promised to be the greatest championship in Wimbledon's history.

Except for England's No. 1 Dorothy Round Little, whose recent marriage prevented her from defending the championship, all the best women tennists were entered: Chile's Anita Lizana (U. S. champion), France's Simone Mathieu (French champion), California's Dorothy Bundy (Australian champion), Poland's Jadwiga ("Jaja") Jedrzejowska (last year's runner-up at Wimbledon), Denmark's Hilda Krahwinkel Sperling, California's Alice Marble, Helen Jacobs and Helen Wills Moody. Of the two most famed rivals, Helen Jacobs, out of recent competition because of an injured shoulder, was not even seeded. And Helen Moody, trying for her third comeback in international tennis after three years out of major tournaments, was no better than second choice to win over Co-Favorites Alice Marble and Jaja Jedrzejowska.

Last week, defending Champion Donald Budge having annihilated all other opposition without losing a single set, ambled nonchalantly onto the famed centre court, in the presence of Queen Mary and 18,000 Britons, to meet England's Henry W. ("Bunny") Austin, seeded No. 2. In just 66 minutes--6-1, 6-0, 6-3-- Champion Budge disposed of Bunny Austin who was playing excellent tennis even though he had become a father during the tournament. With this victory Donald Budge became the only player ever to hold the Big Four championships of ten-nis (U. S., Australian, French, English) simultaneously and the only man ever to win at Wimbledon without the loss of a set. Next day he won the men's doubles (with Gene Mako) and the mixed doubles (with Alice Marble), and became the only person ever to win three Wimbledon championships two years in a row. But by complete supremacy 23-year-old Donald Budge relegated himself to comparative obscurity.

For tennis addicts this was a women's Wimbledon. Every day capacity crowds filled the old green stands, anxious not to miss the dramatic defeat of Mrs. Moody, which they feared or hoped might happen any day. To British galleries the 31-year-old Californian had demonstrated that she was still good enough to win and also shaky enough to be beaten--which she twice was, in pre-Wimbledon warmup tournaments. Her opponent in the semi-finals was Hilda Sperling, the same Hilda Sperling who had trounced her two weeks before in the London championships. But when the semi-finals were over, and Mrs. Moody had downed Frau Sperling after a grueling free-for-all (12-10, 6-4), the galleries knew at last that Mrs. Moody was once more at the top of her game.

Meanwhile, in the other bracket Helen Jacobs, apparently fully recovered after a fainting spell early in the play, first proceeded to upset the form chart by defeating four of England's best young players, then upset it again by giving a sound licking to powerful Jaja Jedrzejowska, whose forehand is the best in women's tennis. When, in the semifinals, she defeated Alice Marble, who after eliminating Mme Mathieu was very much in the running, the galleries went wild. For the fourth time they were to watch a Wimbledon finish be tween the two Helens, the California neighbors whose long-time on-court rivalry was matched only by a personal feud which, although denied publicly by each, made every Moody-Jacobs encounter take on the additional savor of a grudge match. Excellent were the prospects of another memorable show like that of three years ago when Helen Moody came from behind to win one of the most dramatic matches in tennis history.

The first eight games of the first set were slashing tennis. Moody, staying as usual in the back court, drove with fierce ness and power that sent Jacobs hopping. Jacobs, using her familiar chop and frequently rushing the net, made placements that left the slow-footed Moody helpless. The set seesawed to 4-all. Then some thing happened. In the ninth game Helen Jacobs, one point from a 5-4 lead, pulled a tendon in her ankle reaching for one of Helen Moody's whizzing backhands. Moody ran out the game and the set, 6-4, the final game at love.

To the jampacked stands, the second set looked like the kind of a match any good player is sometimes forced to play with a kid sister. Jacobs, in quite obvious pain, barely moved from the centre of the backcourt. With monotonous regularity the umpire droned out love games for Moody. Once Mrs. George Wightman went out to plead with Miss Jacobs to stop while Helen Moody remained silent across the net. Miss Jacobs shook her head. In the entire set she got precisely three points. Going to the net to shake hands. Helen Moody calmly spoke the only words that passed between the two women during the whole match: "Too bad, Helen."

Thus did Helen Wills Moody become the first woman to win the Wimbledon singles eight times and the greatest woman player of her time. And with coincidental irony, one day later she could also lay claim to being the greatest living woman player. For in Paris, after a week's illness (pernicious anemia) died the best and most exciting of them all, voluble, temperamental, 39-year-old Suzanne Lenglen, six-times Wimbledon champion, beaten only once (when in the middle of a match at Forest Hills she defaulted to Mrs. Molla Mallory) in amateur play.

The galleries had not fully recovered from the shock of the surprising Moody-Jacobs final when Alice Marble and Sarah Palfrey Fabyan won the women's doubles, making a clean sweep for the U. S. that had never happened before at Wimbledon.

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