Fine tennis effort

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33113, 2 January 1973, Page 1

Fine tennis effort

fN.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) MELBOURNE, January 1. The New Zealander, O. Parun, of Wellington, gave a magnificent performance in losing the Australian open tennis singles final to J. D. Newcombe today.

Newcombe, three times winner of the Wimbledon singles title, took his first Australian crown by beating Parun. 6-3, 6-7, 7-5, 6-1, in today’s final.

Newcombe, from Sydney, toiled for 144 minutes under the blazing Melbourne sun to fight off a spirited challenge from Parun to take the championship cup and $6750 first prize.

But Parun, who barely scraped in to the seedings at No. 12. was far from disgraced as he took Newcombe to four tough sets before wilting under the constant pressure of the Australian’s serve and volley game. Parun, playing in Australia for the first time, won applause from the capacity crowd of more than 11,000 at Kooyong centre court with his determination and sportsmanship. At the presentation cere-

mony Parun was given a standing ovation by the crowd.

The difference between the players was Parun’s suspect backhand, especially when returning Newcombe’s powerful and consistent first serves.

Newcombe concentrated on it from’the first game of the match, and forced Parun into changing his plan of attack to overcome the weakness.

Only once was it successful, when he struggled through the second set and then snatched the tie-breaker to level at one set all.

But overcoming his backhand troubles put him on the defensive — a fatal mistake against a player of Newcombe’s calibre. Whenever Newcombe nagged at Parun’s backhand, the New Zealander was in trouble. But he fought his way bravely out of more than one tough situation to stay in the match.

It looked at first as if New-

combe would score’ a runaway win when he ploughed through the opening set in only 24 minutes. But as the New Zealander settled into stride, he made Newcombe do more of the chasing and looked a much better prospect.

Much credit must go to Parun who played so well and fought so hard to emulate a feat last achieved in 1909, when Anthony Wilding of New Zealand won the Australian title. In their semi-finals on Saturday, Parun beat K. Meiier (West Germany), 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6- and Newcombe defeated the French No. I, P. Proisy, 7- 6-4, 6-2. Mrs M. Court, also a former Wimbledon champion before she retired temporarily last year to give birth to her first son, defeated Miss Gooiagong, 6-4, 7-5. in an allAustralian women’s final, to win the event for the 11th time.

(Run of .-play, Page 10.)