Tennis

National Women's Champion.

The seven years of plenteousness that fell to the fortune of Mrs. Molla Mallory are ended. The years of championship famine are upon her and the herald of their coming is Miss Helen Wills. Miss Wills acquired the national singles title by overpowering Mrs. Mallory in the finals of the matches at Forest Hills, L. I., 6-2, 6-1.

Excepting Mile. Lenglen's retreat before the fury of Mrs. Mallory's play in 1921, no national women's finals has been so decisive in a decade. The Pacific Coast champion's strokes struck like lightning-- never in the spot where her opponent waited. Her second serve smarted as sharply as her first. Her incredible ability to cover court served as an immovable defence.

Miss Wills. Born Oct 6, 1905, in California, she won the Bay Counties (Cal.) tournament, 1920; state championship, 1921; national girls' championship, 1921; national doubles championship (with Mrs. Marion Zinderstein Jessup), 1922; national singles championship, 1923.

Though 17 years old, she is not the youngest player to hold our highest honors. Nearly a decade ago 17-year-old May Button (now Mrs. Thomas C. Bundy) took the title. She was a few months younger than is Miss Wills this August.

National Women's Doubles. The Englishwomen finally poked their heads above the tidal wave of defeat which has drenched their invading aspirations. Miss Kathleen McKane and Mrs. B. C. Covell won the national doubles championship by steadiness and clockwork team play from Miss Eleanor Goss and Mrs. Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman. Score: 2--6, 6--2, 6--1. Of singular interest during the match was the pronounced partisanship of the American audience for the English players.

Newport. The lustre of tennis week at Newport was dimmed by the absence of Champion Tilden and W. M. Johnston and by the sputter of fairer fireworks in the women's nationals at Forest Hills. The matches most talked about were the default to Vincent Richards by R. Norris Williams when within a point of victory* and the subsequent defeat of Richards by Harvey Snodgrass (latest California star) in the semifinals. Howard Kinsey dislodged Snodgrass and took the title at 6--4, 4--6, 6--0, 9--7. With his brother, Robert, Howard Kinsey also secured the doubles championship at the expense of S. Howard Voshell and Clarence J. Griffin.

Davis Cup. Australia succeeds itself as America's challenger for the Davis Cup by lowering the French team's tricolor in three straight matches at Longwood Cricket Club, Boston. James O. Anderson (Australian captain) defeated the French schoolboy, RenE Lacoste; John Hawkes disposed of Jacques Brugnon in straight sets, and the same players, paired against each other, locked in a desperate five-set struggle which went the way of the Australians at 6--8, 6--3, 6--3, 6--8, 9--7.

Southern Championships. Courts of the South sent their favorite sons and daughters to Louisville for the Southern championships at the Audubon Country Club. Results:

Men's singles: Jefferson Davis Hunt, Jr., of Atlanta, defeated in the finals Edward Pfeiffer, 6--4, 6--4, 3--6, 6--2.

Women's singles: Mrs. Mary Mason Harding, of Louisville, unexpectedly defeated Miss Ethelyn Legendre, of New Orleans (for four years Southern title-holder), 6--4, 6--4.

Men's doubles: Jefferson Davis Hunt, Jr., and Frank Wens defeated Sid Appel and Emens Dorsey, 6--3, 6--2, 6--2.

*Williams had entered the competition reluctantly, being desirous of devoting his time to play in doubles, so that he and Watson M. Wasburn might be chosen for the Davis Cup team. Had he won against Richards he would have had to continue in the tournament. The score stood, two sets each, 6--5, 40--30, when he defaulted.