THE MEN’S DOUBLES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26198, 8 July 1946, Page 6

THE MEN’S DOUBLES

PAILS OUT OF TOUCH (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 7. The workmanlike combination of the Americans, Tom Brown and Kramer, played too smooth a game in the final of the Doubles at Wimbledon for the Australians, Pails and Geoff Brown, who looked more like too good singles players participating in vaguely related matches and somehow playing on the same court. One of the unluckiest mep in the tournament was Kramer, who showed class with a consistently brilliant allround display of fierce serving, a fluent return service, incisive volleying and smashing, and sound courtcraft. Tom Brown took a little time to warm up, his forehand once more being an erratic weapon, but once he started timing the ball he was a fitting partner for Kramer, and held the service comfortably and returned the service skilfully. He volleyed and smashed with the instinctive placement of a firstclass doubles player. The final day found Pails just as much out of touch as earlier in the week. In the early stages he seemed out to rehabilitate himself, and for four games smashed and volleyed better than on any other occasion during the .tournament. The Americans, however, broke through Pail’s service in the fifth game, a match-winning point they were to repeat five times altogether in Pails’s seven services.

The 26-year-old Californian, Pauline Betz, became the first post-war Wimbledon champion when she defeated her fellow-Californian, the 23-year-old Louis Brough, in a hard-contested but unspectacular final. Both were hard serving, hard volleying women. Knowing each other’s prowess at the net they fought warily from the baseline in long driving duels in which Miss Befz was slightly steadier than her opponent. Miss Brough, in the second set, took the net more often, and although passed several times by flashing backhand shots, she volleyed many nice winners and pulled up to four-all, but Miss Betz applied a little extra pressure and ran out an easy winner.