DAVIS CUP

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 78, 29 September 1930, Page 10

DAVIS CUP

IS IT DOOMED?

STATUS OF THE PLAYERS

SPOET 0E A BUSINESS?

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YOBK, 3rd Sept. . Writers in England, Australia, and the United States are giving much thought these days to the future of the Davis Cup. Has it achieved the purpose of its donor? In thirty years it has made of tennis possibly the only international game that can be played with a uniform code. That objective ■was attained at least three years ago, When 28 nations entered teams for the contest. What of the interim? What of the future? Is tho Davis Cup likely to become a victim of the disease, of size? Will-it become commercialised Hke football and baseball in this country,; like Soccer in England?'

Football, which used to be a game for amateurs, is now a spectacle in the United States, commercialised to the last degree. Last year Yale 's turnover was a million dollars for the football season. The commercial instinct .that dominates the game was proven to everyone's satisfaction, except the parties responsible for "endowing" players, by the research made last season by the Carnegie Institute; One is reminded of the comment of a University ''end—-wing three-quarter—to Ids vis-a-vis of another university: "I bet you can't spell the "name of the juniversity you are playing for to-day." ONE-MAN OWNERSHIP. Baseball is the same. Whole teams jtre owned by one individual. ißabe &uth is paid 85,000 dollars a year for a three-year contract; the President of the United States is paid 75,000 dollars a year for a four-year term. Even polo, the most delightful of sports for -players and spectators alike, is beginning to show signs of getting the germ of "size." ■ Are the Davis Cup players . really amateurs? On'the eye of the 1929 'challenge round thoUnited States Lawn JTennis Association spent 1950 dollars Jn telephone calls from New York to Paris in a frantic effort to determine ■whether Tilden was an amateur or proSessional. That, doubt exists as to the status of Davis Cup players is shown f>y the recent comment of Mr. L. B. Bailey, president of the U.S.L.T.A. *«There are many objections," he said, if to the manner in which some amateurs are conducting themselves to-day. Xet us make it impossible, to make a living out of the game of tennis and still call yourself an amateur." An American writer observes that ■the members of tho United States Davis Cup. team are paid, "Presumably they are playing for the fun of the thing; actually they are paid •just as members of tho New York Giants are'paid by the owners of that baseball club, although the payment takes a different form." Another says some European players are no more amateurs than Jack Sharkey. ■'. "Lawn Tennis and Badminton," the English publication, observes: "The Davis Cup is rapidly assuming the Character of a duty, rather than a pleasure, something irksome that has to be put up with. PlayeTS are beginning to rebel at the time it takes.' TRAVELLING OF TEAMS. Will it continue in the same way? France, securely in possession of the title, would have no change made. Neither would European countries that have little travelling to do. What of Australia, whose authorities had to reduce players' expenses from £2 to £1 atlay?; Australia is beginning to doubt the efficacy of sending teams across the world every year. If pre-war history •were to repeat itself, and Australia held the Cup: for six years, would France look with complacency on having to send a team .to Australia every year? Would Germany? Italy? Will the contest • continue to be an annual affair? Or will.it be fought out every two or four years?. Some writers in U.S. are beginning to see the problem in its true perspective. They see the Davis Cup developing into a, money-making concern. One goes so far as to suggest that Mr. ©wight. Davis, donor of the cup, now Governor of the Philippines, should '•withdraw it. Or T;hat the whole contest bo concluded within a month or six weeks. "The gospel of sportsmanship has been spread by the Davis Cup matches," says this writer. "But they are now a breeder of trouble, inflated •with commercial enterprise, and are sick unto death of the disease of size. May it not be that the time has come to ring down the curtain on last jicfc of this international farce}"- •