Davis Cup

With a big grass-stain on his white flanneled knee, William Tilden, champion of the world, limped over to the umpire's stand and wiped Bis bleak face with a towel. It was the third set and thirteenth game of his match against Rene Lacoste, at Germantown, and he was a game behind.

On a table beside the court the celebrated Davis Cup caught a waning sun. Its presence was not significant. On the third day of the series the U. S., acquiring the necessary three points, had made sure of retaining it: William Johnston .had beaten Rene Lacoste, Tilden had beaten Jean Borotra, Vincent Richards and R. Norris Williams had won their doubles match from Henri Cochet and Jacques Brugnon. But a great issue was in the balance, and Tilden, as he put down the towel and prepared to receive Lacoste's service, was quite aware that this issue might be swayed, for good or evil, by the grass-stain on his trousers.

He had dawdled through the first set, managing to win it, 6-4, only because Lacoste obviously expected to be beaten and made errors. Lacoste's game has always irritated Tilden. It is a suave game, a soft-spoken game of placements that look easy because the man who reaches for them looks so awkward--of strokes that a hard-hitting player can kill only if he is very careful. Last year Lacoste reached match-point four times before Tilden beat him. The champion was teasing, people said; he gave away points to get an incentive.

Was he doing the same thing now? Lacoste had taken the second set; now, encouraged by the appearance of the grass stain, he took the third. Surely, that was all the incentive Tilden could ask for. ... He had his back, at last, where he liked to have it, against a metaphorical wall. Unfortunately, the grass-stain on his flannelings was not metaphorical; and he had--could one believe it?--a perfectly literal limp. He had hurt himself. That was the plain prose of it.

When he came 'back after the rest period he had a plain prose bandage on. He won the first and third games, lost the fourth and, after a heartbreaking struggle, the fifth. The sixth game of this fourth set was easy for Lacoste. And he had a lead in the seventh when Tilden started to play cannonball services. Placements boomed like round-shot. The gallery rocked and roared. Now he was off. He would keep on, he would snow the Frenchman under, he would. . . .

And yet he did not. For the first time in his life he lost a Davis Cup match, for the first time in a blue moon the metaphorical wall toppled over, crushing him. Reaching for one of Lacoste's drives, he had sprained a ligament in his knee. Lacoste took the match, 4-6, 6-4, 8-6, 8-6.

Johnston and Borotra rounded off the series with a free-hitting match, Johnston gambling all on each drive, Borotra bounding wildly. Johnston won: 8-6, 6-4, 9-7