DAVIS CUP SUCCESS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 August 1935, Page 10

DAVIS CUP SUCCESS

ENGLISH DOUBLES WIN MISTAKE OF ALLISON GREAT SINGLES PLAYER Wilmer Allison, slow-speaking, smiling faced Texan, has often bathed in the fierce light of the world’s publicity. Yet even the memorable and notorious episode of the 1932 Davis Cup challenge round between America and France, When Allison, leading 5 —3 and with the match’ in hand for the cup, was disturbed -and ultimately beaten by Jean Borotra’s insistent cries for shoes, was probably little more disturbed then than he was on Monday when he ingloriously double-faulted on match point in the challenge round doubles against England. That double fault, achieved at the most dramatic period of the match, destroyed once again America’s chance of winning the cup. With two singles in its kit, England sat back to watch Hughes and Tuckey, its experimental doubles pair, wiped off the court by Allison and John van Ryn, one of the most famous -pairs since the war. Not even the most sanguine expected the

match to go to five sets and he was a patriot indeed who gave England’s pair any chance. Yet the unexpected happened, and England, for the third time in succession, had won the cup. The fact that it was England’s first Davis Cup challenge round doubles victory in 28 years shows how great the victory was. Seven years ago, and even less than that, England was a poor relation among the tennis playing countries of the world. Famed always for Wimbledon and for the way her players took their defeats with an easy grace born, not of the playing fields of Eton, but of long practice, England to-day is the greatest tennisplaying country in the world. There are no two players of any country so strong as Frederick J. Perry and H. W.' Austin and their retention of the cup has become a matter of physical endurance only. .While Perry, the laughing cavalier of the courts, can retain that marvellous control and speed and Austin the delicate but enduring mechanism of the world’s finest stylist, so long will Britain retain the cup.

Britain’s success, when analysed, is amazing. America and Australia, blessed with tropical climates, play and practise tennis the year round. England, the victim of every wind and w every rain, struggles gamely with a few months of the year to acquire the precision that can only come with prolonged play. Perry’s success, really, is less remarkable than Austin’s, for Perry to-day is a citizen of the world, while Austin remains a simple inhabitant of England. The threats to the retention of the

cup come not from France, but from Germany, America and possibly Australia. Allison, a sportsman in 'the finest sense, has done his dash and has played probably his last Davis Cup match. But from her teeming millions, America

pioduces tennis players of nfatchless quality and already Donald Budge and Gene Makb threaten as world champions. Whatever happens, Britain’s day as a poor relation has gone and it will not goon return.