Wimbledon

One reason U.S. amateur tennis is in such parlous shape is that talent too often goes unrewarded. Puerto Rico's Charles Pasarell, for example, has won two straight U.S. Indoor championships and was the only American even to reach the men's quarterfinals at Wimbledon--yet he was passed over for the 1967 Davis Cup team. Then there is Billie Jean Moffitt King, 23.

A chubby California housewife, "Jillie Bean," as friends call her, is the No. 1-ranked woman player in the world --but at home last year she had to share the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association's No. 1 ranking with Texas' Nancy Richey, who had never won a major grass-court tournament. Billie Jean had. Last year at Wimbledon, she beat Australia's Margaret Smith and Brazil's Maria Bueno to give the U.S. its first All-England ladies' singles title in four years. Afterward, Martin Tressel, then president of the U.S.L.T.A., stated publicly that if the Brazilian girl had not been off her game she would have beaten Billie Jean--and wasn't it too bad she didn't?

Champion & a Lady. It took Billie Jean a whole year to come up with an answer. Two weeks ago, in one magnificent afternoon at Wimbledon, she 1) polished off Britain's Ann Haydon-Jones to win the singles again, 2) teamed with Rosemary Casals to beat Maria Bueno and Nancy Richey for the doubles title, and 3) combined with Owen Davidson to capture the mixed doubles. It was a feat last accomplished by Doris Hart in 1951.

Billie Jean has been playing tennis ever since she turned eleven and "asked my parents to suggest a sport in which I could be a champion and a lady at the same time." Within four years, Little Miss Moffitt was a regular on the tournament circuit. Unlike many top women players, who hang back around the baseline, Billie Jean is a relentless net attacker, and her first volley is as good as a man's.

Perry Jones, 69, dean of U.S. tennis coaches, rates her among the alltime greats: behind Helen Wills Moody, the star of the 1920s and 1930s, but ahead of Doris Hart and about on a par with Maureen Connolly, who in 1953 achieved a grand slam by sweeping the Australian, Wimbledon, French and U.S. singles championships. Which, Billie Jean announced last week, is precisely her goal for 1968.

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