At Forest Hills

Husky Nancye Wynne went to bed for 24 hours, then lumbered out to limber her muscles on Manhattan's River Club court. Her compatriot, 19-year-old John Bromwich, Australia's either-handed, both-handed tennis topnotcher, wandered around Broadway until sheer ennui forced him to do a little volleying on an indoor court. Blond Sidney Wood, Wimbledon winner in 1931 who has been trying for a comeback this summer after two years of minding his nuggets in a California gold mine, visited his relatives in Manhattan. California's Alice Marble, U. S. women's champion two years ago, was a house guest of the Socialite Gilbert Kahns at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Little Sarah Palfrey Fabyan, twinkle-toed Bostonian, sat around at the Forest Hills Inn drinking tea. California's Donald Budge, world's No. 1 amateur tennist, and his square-headed shadow, Doubles Partner Gene Mako, spent their days at the movies and listening to swing bands.

Thus did the semifinalists in the U. S. Singles tennis championships (men's & women's) spend their time last week while an unprecedented rainy spell held up the semi-finals at Forest Hills for six days. As jittery contestants champed at the bit, U. S. tennis fans mused over nine days of the dullest top-flight tennis since women played in ankle-length flannel skirts and panama hats.

Men's Final. When the skies cleared and the semi-finals were finally resumed, even the most disappointed fans turned up at Forest Hills once more to see whether Sidney Wood, who has stood out in bas-relief against the current U. S. crop of temperamental young tennists this summer, could extend Defending Champion Donald Budge and become the first player to take a set from him. Even that was disappointing. Budge annihilated Wood, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, in a match almost as unexciting as the other semi-final in which his doubles partner, Budapest-born Gene Mako, unseeded because of insufficient singles play, pricked the big Bromwich bubble, 6-3, 7-5. 6-4. For the first time since the Tilden-Hunter final in 1929, a pair of U. S. doubles champions faced one another for the Singles championship.

In 1929 Tilden beat Hunter. Last week Budge followed suit--but not before dropping a set to his crony, 6-3, 6-8, 6-2, 6-1 --and thereby accomplished what no other tennist had ever done: won the Big Four championships of the world (Australian, French, English, U. S.) in one year.

Women's Final. On the distaff side, the semi-final between Alice Marble (seeded second to Helen Jacobs) and crafty Sarah Palfrey Fabyan made up for the lacklustre men's matches. Playing her usual powerful but erratic game, onetime Champion Marble twice came within a point of defeat before taking the match, 5-7, 7-5, 7-5. Next day, playing against Nancye Wynne, 21-year-old Melbourne stenographer who had beaten California's Dorothy Bundy on her way to the final, Alice Marble needed just 22 minutes to win the championship, 6-0, 6-3.

Looking forward to next year, when 23-year-old Donald Budge will probably follow Bill Tilden, Ellsworth Vines and Fred Perry into professional tennis (at some $100,000 a year), sport fans felt sorry for the amateur game.

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