Arrival & Departure

Frank Parker refused to consider the idea, even privately. Parker was 32, Billy Talbert 30 and Gardnar Mulloy 33--and they had all been playing the tennis circuit for years & years--but they were not oldtimers yet. Said Frank: "I don't let myself think that."

Neither did the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association. In last week's national amateur tennis championships at Forest Hills, Davis Cuppers Parker, Talbert and Mulloy were seeded first, second and third. Young (25) Victor Seixas of the University of North Carolina filed a popular demurrer. Said he: "It's no longer a question of when the younger generation is going to arrive. We're here, brother!"

In the opening rounds, Forest Hills fans rooted loudly for every young face. Talbert was the first of the Three Old Men to go; he lost to Eric Sturgess, 28, a smooth stylist from South Africa who was making his first trip to the U.S. Next day young (19) Herbie Flam of the University of California at Los Angeles stroked Mulloy's head off.

"Like a Bullfight." Parker, twice national champion (1944 and 1945) and runner-up last year to Jake Kramer, played his aloof, passionless way into the quarter-finals without dropping a set. Then he encountered Richard ("Pancho") Gonzales, 20, the easygoing, hard-hitting Mexican-American from Los Angeles (TIME, May 19,1947), who was only No. 17 in the national ranking.

Young Pancho, one of seven kids of a Hollywood studio painter, has been playing tennis since 1941, when his mother gave him a 51-c- racket for Christmas. School never interested him much ("If it was a warm day and the fellows said 'Let's go to the beach,' who was I to say no?"). Though Perry Jones, the Southern California tennis czar, looked askance, he quit high school in 1943 and then did a hitch in the Navy. He finally played his way back into Jones's good graces--and the tournament bids, expense money and coaching that go with them.

Parker, the model of tennis concentration, tried to shut out the partisan crowd from his consciousness. ("It was like a bullfight. I was the bull") But Parker couldn't handle Pancho's powerful but erratic serve or his incessant volleying attack. With a happy grin on his handsome scarface, the big (6 ft. 2 in.) Gonzales offered his victim to the crowd, 8-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3.

Power v. Style. The near-capacity crowd watching the semi-finals next day saw a study in contrasts. The first was a slugging match in which Gonzales and chunky, 26-year-old Jaroslav Drobny of Czechoslovakia slammed a total of 43 service aces at each other. Pancho wore him out in four sets, 8-10, 11-9, 6-0, 6-3. In the second match, it was style instead of power. Sturgess scored only two aces, Flam none. Time after time, Sturgess' deep forehand drives kicked up the chalk on Flam's baseline. When Flam moved in to the net, Sturgess stayed in his back court, scored with deft passing shots. He won his match in straight sets, 9-7, 6-3, 6-2.

The 12,000 Forest Hills spectators admired Sturgess, the lean, reserved exfighter pilot and insurance accountant who quit his job and paid his own way over from Johannesburg to become South Africa's first U.S. finalist. But they were counting on Gonzales to keep the cup from crossing the water.* This week at Forest Hills, Gonzales' power was too much for Sturgess' style, won the youngster the national championship, 6-2, 6-3, 14-12.

Two days before the finals of the national women's championship, Margaret Osborne du Pont's father was killed in a San Francisco accident. She decided to stick to the tournament. In the long and hard-fought finals she upset last year's champion, Louise Brough, 4-6, 6-4, 15-13.

*Last foreigner to take it away: Britain's Fred Perry (1933, 1934, 1936).

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