A Lot of Horses

The" U.S. has managed to pry the Davis Cup out of Australia's brawny arms exactly three times in the past 16 years. And four times the U.S. team went down even before the Challenge Round, including last year, when it lost fo Spain., No one is claiming the silverware this year--not quite yet, anyway. But the gloom is beginning to brighten. Last week, in the American Zone finals in Cleveland, the U.S. walloped a powerful Mexican squad 5-0, and the heroes were a pair of eager youngsters with little or no Davis Cup experience.

The only veteran on the team was Dennis ("The Menace") Ralston, 24, who ranks No. 1 in the U.S. and plays like it when he can keep a lid on his temper. Last week the only menacing thing about Dennis was his game. Mixing riflelike base-line shots with lobs, he ran Mexico's Star Rafael Osuna, 27, into the ground with a four-set victory.

The real surprise was Clark Graebner, 22, a gangly, bespectacled Ohioan, who ranks only No. 13 in the U.S.--though he did beat the world's No. 2 and No. 3 players, Australia's Roy Emerson and Fred Stolle, to win a tournament Down Under last year. Up to now, Graebner's trouble has been a relatively weak backhand, which has kept him from a Davis Cup singles berth. At Cleveland last week, he had the backhand to go with his searing forehand and serve. In the first singles match, he beat Mexico's Joaquin Loyo-Mayo 6-0, 4-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, then went out next day with Ralston in the doubles and took only 59 minutes to demolish Osuna and Loyo-Mayo 6-1, 6-4, 6-0. That clinched the best out of five series.

Graebner was not through proving how far he has come. Drawing Osuna in the second series of singles, he treated the home folks in Cleveland to the best tennis of the entire match, acing the Mexican eight times with his slashing serve, and outshooting him with deft passing drives in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. To cap it off, 19-year-old Cliff Richey, the U.S. clay-court champion (TIME, July 29), made his own Davis Cup debut in the other singles by beating Mexico's Marcelo Lara in a grueling four-set match 11-13, 6-0, 10-8, 6-4.

The U.S. now goes against Brazil in the Interzone semifinals this fall. By then there will be another rising star on the squad: Arthur Ashe, 23, ranked No. 2, and a Forest Hills semifinalist last year, who has just finished a tour in the Army. "We've got a long way to go," says George MacCall, the U.S. nonplaying captain. "But for once we've got a lot of horses."

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