Sport: The First Shall Be Second

Pancho Gonzales, 20, was not good enough last summer to make the U.S. Davis Cup team. He had won only one worthwhile tennis tournament (at Southampton). Then Pancho stalked into Forest Hills in September and pulled off one of the biggest upsets in tennis history, to become National Amateur champion. Last week, when the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association made public its rankings for 1948, Pancho’s name topped the list.

Was he really the best U.S. amateur? In second place, the U.S.L.T.A. put 27-year-old Ted Schroeder, who has made himself unpopular with the officials by boycotting the national singles for the past six years. Yet he was the star of the victorious Davis Cup team. And soon after Pancho put on his new crown, Old-timer Schroeder beat him twice in a row.