DAVIS CUP TEAM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20629, 1 June 1935, Page 9

DAVIS CUP TEAM.

American Selection for Europe. PROSPECTS DISCUSSED. In the firet round of the Davis Cup matches in the American zone, the U.S.A. team against the Chinese champions consisted of Bryan Grant, of Carolina, and Geno Mako, of California, but changes are expected in nominations for the team to go to Europe. Discussing the subject in the “New York Times,” a critic says:— “It seeins fairly certain that Wilmer Allison will not be equal to the job of taking the measure, either of Perry or Austin, on English turf. The lean Texan will he .31 years old next December, beyond the best winning age in Davis I Cup play for all except the Tildens and Borotras. Wood has indicated that, playing at his best, and it is a brilliant best, lie is capable of defeating any I amateur in the game. But he has failed to come through before, either in Davis Cup play or in our own national singles at Forest Hills. He is not yet 23 years old, but, an ‘infant prodigy’ several years ago, he has had the benefit of wide experience on both American and foreign | courts. To see Wood when everything is going well in his stroking is to see tennis almost at its zenith. It is difficult to visualise, at such moments, any player being able to withstand his racquet wizardry. He is reminiscent of R. Norris Williams in this respect. “But Wood's difficulties in the past appear to have been due to ‘a state of mind,’ for want of a better expression. Either he regards the issue too lightly and is lacking in the true match | play instinct that made famous such court fighters as Francis T. Hunter and Bill Johnston, or liis penchant for aiming only at the bullseye as he shoots direct for the lines and the top of the net, leaves him too slender a margin of safety on his shots. “The least miscalculation in liis hitting and Wood’s game lapses from supremely fine to a'mazingly inaccurate for a pkiyer who lias had command of so many splendid strokes for the last three or four years, especially a backhand that yields to none in sheer beauty and effectiveness, Wood should he about due to solidify all his resources this year and go on to the heights that are within his reach.” Van Ryn, of course, cannot be con* sidered for a singles place on our next Davis Cup team. The highest place he ever held as a singles player in our own first ten -was in 1931, when he reached No. 4, and at present he is No. 11. His only value to the team will be as a doubles player, paired with liis old partner, Allisonl There remain the three youngsters, Frank Parker, No. 4; J. Donald Budge, No. 9, and Gene Mako, No. 12, officially named last fall for the Davis Cup squad. Parker is just past nineteen, and Mako not much older, if at all. Their years are tender, but their tennis of an extremely high quality. Not one of them has had international experience. It would be nothing more than a desperate gamble on our part to throw them on the courts at Wimbledon as Davis Cup players. i But let us look hack a few years to the time when France was struggling for serious recognition as a challenger for the cup. There are those of us who | can remember the years prior to 1926, when Rene Lacoste and Henri Cocliet, along with Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon, older men, were as youthful and as ‘'green” in the international game as Parker, Budge and Mako. In I those days the French youths, later to rule the tennis world, accepted defeat regularly, but they learned in adversity, studied their own mistakes, took note of their opponents’ strong points and steadily bolstered their game until the great day arrived when Lacoste, Cocliet, Borotra and Brugnon defeated Tilden and Johnston in the challenge round at the Germantown Cricket Club, of Philadelphia. The same step must be taken by the United States Lawn Tennis Association, with Parker, Budge and Mako playing the roles once enacted by Cocliet and Lacoste, if not this year, then surely in 1936. Only baptism by fire can weld the youthful material into winning metal, and the longer the delay in the tempering process the longer before the finished product is available. Budge and Mako, now tlie third ranking doubles team in the United States, have all the indications that mark them as one of the greatest doubles pairs of the future that this country has produced. They are aggressive, solid in their stroking and sound in their tactical judgment. Already they have defeated Lott and Stoefen, champions of last season, and Allison and Van Ryn, and they have not by any means reached tlieir potential heights. Should the' Davis Cup committee elect to send these California youngsters in against Australia or France in the final round and against England in the challenge round, presuming our men got that far, it would not surprise me to see Mako and Budge come through. Their only real ■weakness—and it is no fault of theirs—is lack of competition in Davis Cup play.