Thick & Thin

From the opening day of the U. S. Women's National Championship at Forest Hills last week, the experts and the small crowds tried hard to discover that pale, taciturn Helen Wills Moody was at the end of her rope. Playing against one of the greatest fields of women tennis players ever assembled, she was wearing a brace to hold in a loose vertebra. But while other players were "winning easily" 6-4, Mrs. Moody was as usual being "extended" 6-2. Meanwhile the U. S. champion, Helen Jacobs, whose coronet Wimbledon Champion Moody had come coolly back for, had real trouble winning from Josephine Cruikshank.

To meet the two Helens, two British girls mowed steadily toward the semifinals. The British seeded No. 1 was thin, plain Dorothy Round, a Worcestershire clergyman's daughter and Sunday School teacher whose style has Mrs. Moody's classical sweep and who was good enough to take a famed set from her in the Wimbledon finals. Her ablest teammate was bouncing Betty Nuthall, carrying two rabbit's feet, a girl as stocky and thick-waisted as Helen Jacobs. Playing drably in the quarter-finals against Alice Marble of San Francisco, Miss Nuthall's sunny smile faded as she realized the score was 6-8, 6-0, 1-5 and she was about to serve match point. In one of the most amazing back-to-the-wall attacks ever seen in women's tennis she took six straight games for the set & match. Then, two days before thick Miss Jacobs went against thin Miss Round, thick Miss Nuthall tried to get past thin Mrs. Moody.

In this match two more phenomena were added to this extraordinary tournament. On the first day Helen Jacobs had appeared in the first shorts ever worn on the Forest Hills courts. Some of the other girls followed suit and delighted press photographers voted Miss Round the best British legs, Carolin Babcock the best U. S. legs. Wearing shorts did not indicate any dissolution of Miss Round's character. She proceeded to flabbergast the U. S. Lawn Tennis Association by refusing to play her semi-final match on Sunday.

When be-shorted Miss Nuthall took the court against be-skirted Mrs. Moody, spectators were startled again. In just twelve minutes the British girl, serving and driving with powerful precision, took the first set 6-2, the first set Mrs. Moody had lost in the U. S. since 1926. Surprise gave place to bewilderment when, in the second set, after Mrs. Moody had just lost a game on her service, they saw her change courts, toe the backline and serve again. Neither of the players realized the mistake. Not until several points had been played did the 13 officials wake up. And then they were afraid to interrupt Mrs. Moody's service, for she was losing the mis-served game.* She lost the next, too. and seemed about to lose the match. But something still happens to people who get a lead on Helen Moody. And something still happens to her. She began stroking the ball a little harder, watching it a little more closely. She took the second set and, after a rest that did her more good than Betty Nuthall, firmly ran out the match 2-6, 6-3, 6-2. Rain the next day gave her wrenched back another long rest before she had to use it against thin Miss Round or thick Miss Jacobs.

*At Wimbledon this year Japan's Jiro Satoh was allowed to serve two games in succession by mistake against Britain's Bunny Austin. The rules say that all points scored before discovery of the mistake shall count. But if the game is finished, the altered service order shall remain.

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