Professional Tennis

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28362, 22 August 1957, Page 15

Professional Tennis

Dinny Pails, the Australian professional tennis player, has hotly denied that games under the promotion of Jack Kramer are

“rigged.” When Pails recently beat Lewis Hoad at Los Angeles, some tennis supporters were openly sceptical about the result of the match. There were suggestions that Pails could not have won on his merits, and that Hoad would make a triumphant comeback during the professional tour of Australia later this year. Pails replied to questions on the subject when he returned recently to Australia.

“I am amazed at talk here that Hoad has been losing matches so that he may make a great comeback on the Australian tour,” said Pails. “Had everything been organised along those lines by Kramer, Hoad would not be losing all the time. In fact if anything was “arranged” Hoad would be winning. Lew is desperately trying to win matches, but nobody is going out of their way to give him help.

“I thought of throwing my match with him when I was half-way through and looked a certain winner. I thought it was tough for the kid to be losing to me. Then I thought of the extra dollars a win would mean to me —so I pulled myself together and won the match. The pros don’t cut their earnings among each other, and they get more by winning than losing. Lew is on a bonus every time he wins. Right now his big mistake is that he is trying to make every stroke a winner an impossible task against the standard of player he is facing.”