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Star (Christchurch), Issue 17781, 26 February 1926, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN tennis champion J. B. Hawkes is slender but wiry. He plays the all-court game, and has a serve that is unique. More than fourteen years ago, at Christchurch, New Zealand, the American team, Layned, Beals Wright and Maurice McLoughlin, were seeking to wrest the Davis Cujd from Australasia, and a number of Victorians had come across to see the games. Among these was the late Russell Keays, the enthusiastic and capable Geelong player. McLoughlin, speaking of a lad in California, said to Keays, “ I have a boy coming on in California who will be a Davis Cup player.” “ And I,” said Keays, “ have a twelve-year-old in Geelong who will be a Davis Cup man before yours.” Keays spoke no more than the truth: that boy was Jack Ilawkes, son of Keaj-s’s great friend, the late Mr Tom Hawkes. Three 3-ears later that boy was to win the Victorian schoolboys’ championship, -without the loss of a set, and, slender laddie though he was, he was to retain that championship for five 3-ears in all, and still without in any >-ear losing a set, and to leave school unbeaten. Within three years of leaving school he was picked in the 1921 Davis Cup team, and visited Canada and the United States, thus justifying the prediction and vindicating the coaching of his friend and mentor, Russell Kea3’S.