Vines at Sea Bright

A year ago, Ellsworth Vines, whose father owns a chain of Pacific coast meat stores, reached the finals of the Sea Bright (N. J.) Lawn Tennis & Cricket Club's invitation tournament after a series of smart victories in the early rounds. He was beaten, in perhaps the most surprising match of the year, by Sidney B. Wood Jr., who upset his game by softly patting chop strokes across the net.

Last week, Ellsworth Vines was in the Sea Bright finals again. This time his opponent was John Hope Doeg, U. S. champion. Doeg's play in the early rounds had been weakly erratic--he played a deuce-set match in the first round, dropped a set to an obscure player in the second, almost lost his next match to an exhausted opponent, barely got past a Californian named Jack Tidball in the semifinals. He had already confessed that he did not expect to regain the U. S. championship this year and the readiness with which he had turned his hand to writing for publication suggested that he was eager to capitalize his laurels while he had them. Vines had beaten him in the finals at Longwood two weeks before; tennis enthusiasts at Sea Bright felt sure that he would solace his disappointment of a year ago by beating Doeg again.

Doeg, smashing his left-handed service into the far corners of Vines's receiving courts, waiting for breaks which would enable him to win a game on Vines's serve, won the first set 12-10; the second (during which an awning of the clubhouse caught fire), 8-6. Vines, whose forehand drive is now the fastest in amateur U. S. tennis, pulled up to win the next set after Doeg had led 3-1. Doeg had tried playing soft shots at Vines, only to find that Vines, standing sideways to the net and timing his returns carefully, had learned how to handle them. In the fourth set, he was pounding the ball again. Presently Doeg was within two points of the match--4-5 and 0-30 on Vines's serve. Vines served four aces for the game. He lost the next game and then won three in a row for the set at 8-6. Easily, against the tiring and dispirited champion, he won the match-set at 6-1. Sea Bright dopesters agreed that if Vines shows his present form in the next month's national championship, he is likely to win it, likely to replace Wimbledon Champion (by default) Wood on next year's Davis Cup team. Doeg, stung by his third tournament defeat this season, changed his plans for this week, entered the Meadow Club's invitation tournament at Southampton, N. Y.

The women's singles were interesting because people were still wondering whether Helen Wills Moody had gone back or improved Since her last Eastern campaign in 1929. In the semifinals, against Marion Zinderstein Jessup, a member of the first ten a decade ago, it looked as though she had gone back. Mrs. Jessup outdrove her in the first set, led at 4-2, and only lost the warm match 6-4, 6-3. Two days later Mrs. Moody thoroughly confused her critics by beating her fellow Californian, Helen Jacobs, 6-0, 6-0, in 32 minutes.

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