Hot Shots

To play in the Eastern grass-court tournaments, to be included among the first ten in U. S. ranking and be selected for the Davis Cup is the ambition of every young man whose tennis game is good enough to win a State or district championship. This week at the toney Seabright Lawn Tennis & Cricket Club on the Jersey coast, the cream of the current crop of Davis Cup hopefuls, more enthusiastic than ever because there is no titan like Donald Budge to tower over them this year, will match strokes in the first of the four major grass-court tournaments that annually serve as a showcase for U. S. tennis talent.

Seeded No. 1 is 21-year-old Bobby Riggs, just returned from Europe, where he proved that he deserves the rank of top U. S. tennist (inherited when Champion Budge abdicated last fall) by winning the All-England championship at Wimbledon three weeks ago. That Riggs will be chosen as one of the defenders of the Davis Cup this year is practically a foregone conclusion. It is for the other singles assignment and the doubles team that the country's hot shots will for the next four weeks engage in a free-for all on the hallowed grass at Seabright, Southampton, Rye and Newport.

Standouts among the aspirants are:

> 25-year-old Elwood Cooke of Portland, Ore., a steady though unimaginative performer who sprang from 28th place to seventh in U. S. ranking last year and three weeks ago sprang a surprise on the brass hats of the United States Lawn Tennis Association when he reached the finals at Wimbledon and then put up a stubborn five-set struggle before letting Bobby Riggs take the world's No. 1 title.

> 21-year-old Don McNeill of Oklahoma City, a dynamic player with faultless court manners who, although ranked 13th, has twice defeated Baron Gottfried von Cramm (generally considered the world's best amateur) and last month trounced Bobby Riggs in straight sets in the final of the French championship (hard-court) at Paris.

> 23-year-old Frankie Parker (ne Pajkowski), the sensational Milwaukee ball boy who rose to No. 2 ranking in 1936, clinched the Davis Cup for the U. S. in 1937, slumped last year after marrying his foster mother, Mrs. Mercer Beasley, and this year--cannier, more confident, and equipped with a new forehand--has shown promise of returning to his top-notch form.

> 23-year-old Gene Mako of Los Angeles, who has played doubles (with Don Budge) on three Davis Cup teams and will probably be selected for the doubles again this year (maybe with Parker) if he can keep his mind off swing bands and the drums he loves to play.

If these four do not measure up to expectation, there are at least three other able candidates:

> Ornery, cocky Oregonian Wayne Sabin, 23, a career tennist who thinks he is the second best player in the U. S. and can get several tennis fans to agree with him--primarily because his steady, all-round game has defeated almost every top-flight U. S. player (including his fellow-townsman Elwood Cooke four out of five times) in the circuit of southern tournaments last winter.

> Towheaded toothy Socialite Sidney Wood, magnificent stylist who has been an in-&-outer ever since he won the All-England championship in 1931 and this year, at 26, is seriously trying to make the Davis Cup team once more.

> Tireless, pee-wee Bryan M. ("Bitsy") Grant of Atlanta, oldest (28) and smallest (5 ft. 3) of the 1939 contenders, who has been among the top ten for the past six years and is famed not only as a tumblebug and crowd pleaser (he is almost as efficient horizontally as vertically) but also as one of the greatest retrievers in the history of tennis. Long famed as a Giant Killer, Tumblebug Grant, who wears shorts to avoid wear & tear on his trouser knees, will be watched by the Davis Cup Committee more closely than ever this year. Among the tennis giants he has harassed into submission are Jack Crawford, Adrian Quist and Jack Bromwich, the three formidable Australians who (unless they lose the Interzone final) will face the U. S. team in the Davis Cup challenge round at Philadelphia on September 2-3-4.

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