Two Babies and a Fox

On the eve of the Davis Cup matches last week, Australia was in a tennis tizzy that made U.S. excitement over a World Series look pale. Even the impending visit of Queen Elizabeth was crowded off the front pages. Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies got so excited that he arrived for the Melbourne matches an hour and a half early. And one paper, the Melbourne Argus, felt called upon to write an open letter to Australia's two 19-year-old tennis prodigies, Lewis Hoad and Ken Rosewall, trying to take the pressure off the youngsters. Gist of the letter: "If you lose, it will not be a major tragedy in Australian history."

To bolster the youngsters' confidence, foxy Coach Harry Hopman predicted a 4-1 victory. U.S. Davis Cup Captain Billy Talbert, flanked by veteran (30) Wimbledon Champion Vic Seixas and young (23) U.S. Champion Tony Trabert, also figured the final score would be 4-1--for the U.S. As it turned out, both predictions were wrong, but canny Harry Hopman proved to be the better guesser.

After a day of play, the matches stood at one-all. Hoad, who had lost to Seixas six straight times, this time beat Seixas in straight sets. Trabert provided the equalizer, also in straight sets, against Rosewall. For the all-important doubles match, the Aussie selectors broke up the Hoad-Rosewall combination and lost a match that even U.S. Captain Talbert had conceded to Australia. With their team 1-2 behind, the Aussies switched from optimism to bleak pessimism. Only twice in the 54-year history of the Davis Cup had a team managed to overcome such a deficit. Particularly embittered by the loss of the doubles, Aussie fans began calling the selection committee "the guilty men."

In the fourth match, Hoad faced Trabert on a soggy, rainswept court. "It was," said former Australian Champion Jack Crawford afterward, "the greatest tennis I have ever seen anywhere in the world." It was a battle of slam-bang serves, whistling forehands and slashing backhands by. the two hardest hitters in amateur tennis today. And when it was over, young Hoad had squared matters at two-all after a three-hour battle, 13-11, 6-3, 2-6, 3-6, 7-5.

The clincher was an anticlimax. It was up to Seixas, but Seixas was not up to it. Rosewall won in four sets, and the venerable cup was put away Down Under for the fourth straight year. Seixas implied that he would not return for another try. but Tony Trabert, who had won eight of eleven sets from the youngsters, denied rumors, that he would turn pro and vowed he would be back next year. Grinning, Trabert brought a big roar from the 17,500 Aussies packed into Kooyong Stadium when he said: "I've been playing tennis since I was six, and have lost to a lot of people. But this is the first time I have lost to two babies and a fox."

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