Beauty at the Baseline

The tall young man from Tennessee's Maryville College stared at the girl across the net and served viciously. The ball came back. For the next 30 minutes his best drives kept coming back at him with maddening regularity. He began to net his returns and overdrive the baseline. At last he ran up to shake the hand of his conquerer: the University of Chattanooga's Marilyn Voges. The score: 6-0, 6-0.

Beating men is nothing new to 19-year-old Marilyn Voges. Since she made the varsity as a freshman last season, she has been in continuous competition with males, has lost only one singles match. And Chattanooga's team is undefeated.

A trim little (5 ft. 3 in., 112 Ibs.) blonde, Marilyn does not have the strength for a big game, relies instead on steady retrieving to force her opponent into errors. Under the tutelage of Coach Tommy Bartlett, she has learned to keep her returns deep to prevent men from charging the net. Says Teammate Wirt Gammon Jr.: "Marilyn may not be the best in the world at putting the ball away, but she just keeps hitting it back, hitting it back."

Marilyn began playing tennis on Chattanooga's public courts when she was eight, picked up the game from "hanging around" her older brother Alan, himself a former player at the university. She proved so good last year that this season her teammates elected her captain. She plays in the No. 2 singles position, teams in doubles with the No. 4 man, Ray Hock (so far they are unbeaten). In the No. 5 singles spot on the varsity is another girl, red-haired Betty Rush, 24, a former WAVE who has won all of her matches this year.

Marilyn is majoring in physical education, gets one semester-hour credit for her tennis, plans to become a physical education instructor. She frets about the kidding administered to males who lose to her. "It makes me feel bad," she says. "I don't think it's fair for them to tease."

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