Sport: At Forest Hills

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Two rounds of the Men's Singles Championship at Forest Hills passed by without any really disturbing developments. Then in the third round young Frankie Parker, boy-wonder of U. S. tennis for the last two years, lost to Keith Gledhill. Parker's coach. Mercer Beasley, characteristically explained Gledhill's good placing by saying: "Parker was out of position." Sweating hard but still grinning like a satyr, George Lott lost to Ryosuke Nunoi, 5-7, 1-6, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2. Nunoi, with better ground-strokes than other recent Japanese players, was so ineffective for the first two sets that Lott, who pays more attention to his bridge than his tennis, grew careless. A reverse twist serve that nearly hit Nunoi in the eye made the crowd laugh, made Nunoi serious. His victory was the beginning of a series of events which made the crowd remember that, even in tennis, anything can happen. Next day, Wilmer Allison, second ranking U. S. player, No. 2 singles man on the Davis Cup team, came out on the courts with Adrian Quist, a white-toothed young Australian known mainly as a competent doubles player. Quist won, in straight sets, and the crowd moved from the stadium to the clubhouse court to see a match between tall Ellsworth Vines, the defending champion, and spry, 5-ft.-3-in. Bryan ("Bitsy") Grant, who used to be Hines's doubles partner at North Carolina. Vexed at being seeded tenth, with Parker fifth, Grant was out to make the U. S. L. T. A. see its mistake. Vines, list less and unsure as he has been most of this season, started making errors at once, but as the play wore on it was not Vines's errors so much as the hornet-like persistence of Grant that amazed the crowd. He dived all over the court to make "impossible" returns. He served with smash and fire. He played Vines's low backhand, the champion's weakest spot. A wary change of pace made Vines, trying to get his timing right, sadly shake his head. Score for grass-stained little Grant: 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. There were no further surprises until the semi-finals were over, suddenly and decisively eliminating the last U. S. players and presenting a final between Jack Crawford of Australia and Fred Perry of England. It was the first all-British final in Forest Hills history, the first all-foreign final since the one between Borotra and LaCoste in 1926. Perry, son of a London M. P., a tennis player who dresses as well as he makes his shots, had difficulty with Gledhill in the fourth round. When the set-score was 1-2 against him, his confrere F. H. D. Wilde asked him if he wanted anything. ''Two sets," said Perry. He got them. Next day he polished off Adrian Quist. Willowy Lester Stoefen, 6 ft. 3 in. Californian—who had put out tiny Grant in a comical quarterfinal during which Grant spent most of the time rolling on the court trying to retrieve Stoefen's blistering drives—wilted completely to Perry, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2. Crawford had had difficulty with no one except Sidney Wood, whom he played in the fourth round. A sedate, almost portly young man, looking much older than his 25 years, Crawford was trying to add the U. S. title to the three others—Australian, French, All-England—that he had already won this year, for a sweep as clean and unprecedented as Bobby Jones's golf record of 1930. By the time he reached the final it looked as though, with a game distinguished

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