Rebounding Basque

There was a bald spot now where his familiar blue beret used to be, but his thin face, jerky, stiff-armed strokes and debonair air were unmistakable. It was Jean Borotra all right, back on the same Manhattan courts where he had four times won the U.S. indoor tennis title (1925, 1927, 1929, 1931). The occasion: an exhibition match with an old rival, the U.S.'s ex-Davis Cupper Francis X. Shields.

It had been more than a decade since U.S. tennis fans had seen France's Bounding Basque in action. It had been even longer since the Davis Cup matches which established Borotra as one of tennis' all-time greats. In the interim, Borotra had been Minister of Sports for the Vichy government. Fortunately for him, he had been charged with working for the Resistance and fired by Laval in 1942, was in a German prison when France was liberated.

Winner last month of his twelfth French indoor title, Borotra at 48 is still one of the four or five top indoor players in Europe. Last week in Manhattan--third stop in his current U.S. exhibition tour*--his free-swinging volleys and unorthodox backhand (which looks much like a ping-pong shot) were not in top form, but his ebullient disposition was (chasing a drive, he landed in a spectator's lap, apologized with a winning Gallic bow). Frank Shields's big service was too big for Borotra, just as it had been in the Wimbledon semi-finals 16 years ago. Score: 12-10, 6-2. Smiled the Bounding Basque, who plans no serious comeback: "A most pleasant affair. I played badly."

* With Jacques Brugnon (now non-playing) and Marcel Bernard, other oldtime French Davis Cuppers, to raise money for the rebuilding of Paris' bombed-out Stade de Coubertin, heart of French indoor tennis. It was inconveniently near the Renault factory.

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