SEMI-FINALS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 864, 11 September 1933, Page 1

SEMI-FINALS.

Victories for Perry and Crawford. UNITED STATES TITLE. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. FOREST HILLS, Sept. 9. F. J. Perry (England) and J. B. Crawford (Australia) won the semifinal matches for the United States tennis championship, making an allBritish final. It is the first occasion on which an Australian has competed for the honour. They are described as the most formidable finalists in the history of the national singles. The matches resulted as follows: F. J. Perry (England) beat Lester Stoefen (U.S.A.), 6-3. 6-2, 6-2. J. B. Crawford (Australia) beat F. X. Shields (U.S.A.), 7-5, 6-4, 6-3. Crawford stood three points up to win his service in the first game against Shields, only to have the game deuced. He, however, pulled it out at 5-3. Shields won the second game on an almost unreturnable service. It appeared that Crawford would have been content to trade ground strokes with his opponent, whereas Shields was always a net stormer, and made every bid to entice the Australian into the fore court in order to volley past him. Crawford used the lob when possible, but not with great success on account of the American’s height. The Australian chiefly depended upon the great length which he gave his drives, and his accuracy. Crawford’s Fall. Both then lost a service, Crawford taking the sixth to love and Shields the seventh by four points to two. They were both netting and outing. The Australian had a bad fall in the eighth game when' trying to get back to one of Shields’s overhead smashes. After that he limped noticeably. The Forest Hills courts this year are notoriously rough. The end came in the twelfth game when Crawford returned each of Shields’s four services with a fine chop and his opponent netted the returns. Crawford won four games to love in this set. In the second set, with the games at 3-3, the Australian lapsed into errors and was netting Shields’s returns from service continuously. He dropped behind to 3-4, but accounted for Shields’s delivery in the next, and the score was 4-4. The American was within a point of breaking the Australian’s service in the next game, but Crawford then displayed his full versatility. His fiat cut drives worked perfectly. Compelled to run up to the net, he smashed with strength and precision, and he even got after Shields’s deep lobs with astonishing nimbleness. He won the game and led 5-3. Shields served two double faults and netted twice in the next game, to give the Australian the victory. In the third set Shields was within a point of losing his service in the sixth game, but in his first display of really bravura tennis, that left Crawford flatfooted, he retrieved his position, but was unable to maintain the pace. Crawford’s stroking was like clockwork and his precision and extraordinary timing sense made his playing wellnight perfect. Since the days of Tilden, Cochet, Lacoste and Shimidu Americans had not seen such tennis as the Australian produced. He achieved the necessary break in Shields’s service in the eighth game and won the final game to love. He walked off the courts placidly sucking half a lemon, while the largest crowd that has ever seen a tennis match in America, probably 20,000, extra grandstands having been erected on the stadium court, cheered and hurled their seat cushions in the Perry v. Stoefen. Perry, hammering Stoefen’s backhand, the latter’s weakest shot, broke through Stoefen’s service in the eighth game to take the first set on the next game and his own service. In the second set the American proved no match for the Englishman. With the score at 5-1, Perry had allowed Stoefen only nine points. Although the Englishman lapsed into errors in his service game (the eighth), Stoefen’s backhand was so continuously bad that he was unable to win when victory was almost handed to him. His debacle in the final set was even more complete. Perry in the past two days has been playing at the top of his form, with a smoothness and ease that will make him, if it is maintained to-morrow, one of the most formidable finalists in the history of the national singles. MISS RIDLEY WINS. Women’s Title to British Player. PHILADELPHIA, September 9. Miss Joan Ridley (England) to-day won the Middle States women’s tennis championship, defeating Alice Francis (New Jersey), 6-2, 6-2. Miss Joan Ridley (England) and Miss Alice Francis won the Middle States women’s doubles* championship, defeating Miss Anne Page and Miss Cecilia Riegel, 9-7, 6-1. EASTBOURNE TOURNEY. (Received September 11, 11.35 a.m.) LONDON, September 10. At the Eastbourne tennis tourney Britain won by 14 matches to 2, including the victory of Andrews over Leembruggen 5-7, 6-1, 6-1, Timmer over Stedman 1-6, 6-3, 6-4, and Andrews and Stedman versus Timmer and Scheuller 6-0, 6-3.