Recondite Racquets

Racquets is often confused with squash racquets, squash racquets with squash tennis, squash tennis with court tennis, court tennis with lawn tennis. Always recondite pastime, racquets has traversed the social gamut more completely than any other game. It started in London debtors' prisons, where no other form exercise was practical, in the 18th Century. A prison alumnus, Robert Mackay was the first recognized world's champion in 1820. In 1822, Harrow schoolboys took up the game. In 1853, when London Prince's Club built a racquets court, racquets became exclusively a pastime of patricians. Racquets' rise in the world was accompanied by no spread in popularity. There are only twelve racquets courts which cost some $75,000 each, in the U. S. A few dozen more are scattered over the rest of the world, including London, Bombay and Calcutta. In the whole worl there are possibly 2,000 men who play racquets. Last week, in New York's Racquet & Tennis Club, two of them started something which, owing to the scarcity competition, occurs on an average of once a decade: a match for the open championship of the world.

It was a match of professional speed amateur deception. Lean young Norbert Setzler, one of the New York Racquet Club's five professionals, depends on sizzling forehand that shoots down the side of the court, dies at the back wall. His opponent, David Milford, a British schoolteacher at Maryborough, uses a delicate drop shot. For six games, Setzler's speed and Milford's cunning were evenly matched. In the seventh, Setzler behind at 7-10 and apparently dead tire amazingly began to hit the ball harder than he had since play started, took eight of the next ten points and the match, 4 games to 3.

Last week's match was a contest to determine a new world champion. Last world champion was Charles Williams of the Chicago Racquet Club who won the title from J. Jamsetji of Bombay in 1911 lost it to Jock Soutar of Philadelphia 1913, won it back in 1929, held it until his death in 1935. Setzler, son of a Buffalo corset salesman, was apprenticed to his father's friend, George Standing, longtime New York Racquet Club professional, in 1920. Last year, at 31, he won the U. S.open championship against socialite experts like Clarence Pell, Stanley G. Mortimer, Huntington Sheldon. Milford won the British open and amateur championships last year. Setzler's victory last week was not conclusive. He and Milford play again in London next April. After their second match, the man who has won the most games becomes world champion until challenged and defeated. If both win the same number of games, the man who wins the most points becomes the champion. Setzler's point margin last week was 91 to Milford's 84.

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