Tennis Triflings

In a frantic effort to emulate the All-England Championships at Wimbledon, which are a sell-out every year, the United States Lawn Tennis Association decided this year to try something new. This was to hold the Men's Singles Championship and the Women's Singles Championship, which have hitherto been held at Forest Hills one after the other, at the same time.

As a result, the courts of the West Side Tennis Club were last week cluttered up twice as much as usual by the mediocre performers who always find their way into the National Championships. For nearly a week the seeded players spent their time trifling with trifling opponents or trifling with each other on the club piazza.

Men. Lanky, towheaded Sidney Wood got a scare from Gilbert Hall who was leading 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 4-2. Then Wood ran out four games for the match. Refused permission to wear spikes, Czech Roderick Menzel played shoeless. Champion Fred Perry, too indifferent to win love sets, frisked through a match with one Arthur S. Fowler of Pleasantville, N. Y., 6-3, 6-2, 6-1. William Tatem Tilden II, present as a spectator, announced that Perry's strokes were bad, predicted that Donald Budge would play him in the final, snubbed an autograph hunter who asked him to write his full name: "I'm like Garbo. I just sign my last. . . ."

Women. Left-handed Kay Stammers, prettiest girl in the tournament, warmed up with Perry, beat one Gertrude Dwyer 6-0, 6-2, after winning eleven games in a row. For her first opponent, Helen Jacobs drew Mrs. H. Walter Blumenthal (the onetime Baroness Levi), fifth in U. S. women's ranking, had a hard time winning, 6-3, 6-4. Mrs. Sarah Palfrey Fabyan played the best tennis of the women during the week, avalanching Helen Pederson with hard drives and volleys in two love sets.

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