Cruel, Isn't It?

Captain Adrian Quist was browned off. After all, he had represented Australia in four previous Davis Cup rounds (1936, 1938, 1939, 1946); he was also Australia's national singles champion. What if he was 35, and getting a trifle rubber-legged? Complained Quist: "I've been reading that we'll be lucky to win one of the five matches . . . Personally, I look for a very close and dramatic three-day series."

Few of the 8,000 spectators sprinkling the Forest Hills grandstands (capacity: 13,500) on opening day last week expected that much excitement. Now that Jake Kramer had turned pro, nobody could cook up much enthusiasm for the U.S. singles team: 27-year-old Ted Schroeder, who helped take the cup in 1946 and 1947 but lost five of his six tournaments this year, and 32-year-old Frank Parker, whose mechanical, unemotional game after 15 years in top competition is about as exciting to watch as a meat grinder. The only new face would be Quist's singles teammate, Billy Sidwell, the 28-year-old rookie star of Australia's victory against Czechoslovakia (TIME, Aug. 30).

Billy started off with a bang against Parker. He won the first game of the first set at love, racing into the forecourt in the wake of his stinging service. For a moment or two, the crowd thought they might be seeing a tennis match. But by the seventh game, Parker had figured out the Sidwell serve, and was methodically running the Australian ragged with lobs to the base line and trap shots just over the net. Parker won without cracking a smile or dropping a set, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

In his first set against Adrian Quist, Ted Schroeder found a cannonball service ("I don't know where it came from, but I'm glad it came") and the violently accurate volley that had deserted him all season, and won 6-3. In the second set, he lapsed into his old erratic play, lost 4-6 to Quist's heady tennis. In the third game of the third set, Quist moved in to the net, won a brilliant volley, but ended up on the seat of his pants. The crowd's applause turned to "Aah" (Forest Hills for booing) at the umpire's ruling: Quist had forfeited the point by touching the net. After that, Quist fell apart, watched flat-footed as Schroeder's aces whistled past, lost the final two sets 6-0, 6-0. Up in Row P, a lady murmured: "Cruel, isn't it?"

Once before, in 1939, Australia had lost the first two matches, then come back with a thrilling three straight to take the cup. But in the doubles match this week, on the second day of play, Gardnar Mulloy and Billy Talbert were too much for Sidwell and Colin Long, winning 8-6, 9-7, 2-6, 7-5. For the fourth time in their five meetings, the U.S. had beaten Australia for the Davis Cup.

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