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Savitt will have a fight on his hands at Forest Hills this week. In the old days there were only three or four really top-notch players. Mulloy told Savitt: "In the '30s, I never worried much about a match in the quarter-finals." Today, says Dick, "you have to worry about a lot of people. One year there might be 20 guys who, if they beat you, you don't feel bad. Last year there were about three for me. This year there's nobody." Dick's worries (in order): 1) Sedgman and Trabert; 2) Larsen, Flam and Talbert; 3) Patty and McGregor. Those seven, along with Savitt, make an imposing list of talent, but a list without standouts.
"I Don't Have to Think." Though Dick worries about his chief opponents, he plays them mostly by instinct and experience. Says he: "You just know, somehow, how to play each guy ... I don't have to think. With Larsen, I just try to overpower him. Flam, I play his forehand. With Sedgman, you have to keep the ball deep, he comes to the net so much. He and Larsen are the quickest. With McGregor, you just can't let him volley. Patty doesn't let you play good-looking tennis. Flam hits those looper balls. Before the war, they played more complete tennis. Schroeder and Kramer played all-court games."
So does Dick Savitt, and, win or lose next week, he will put on the kind of dogged, fighting display that brought the crowds out to watch the Tildens, Johnstons, Vineses, Perrys and Budges in their prime. Savitt's game is the "big" game, and he is the kind of player who can never be counted out until the final point. Savitt is a fighter, an attacker, and that's what the crowds like to see.
And win or lose, Savitt is one of the men Frank Shields is counting on to bring the Davis Cup back from Australia. Sweden, with tough Lennart Bergelin (who gave the Australians a scare by winning both his singles matches last year), must be coped with this December before the U.S. can meet the Australians. Savitt has beaten Bergelin, and he has proved that he has the Australians' number.After the matches with Canada, Shields said: "All I know for certain right now is that Dick Savitt will play singles, and Tony Trabert will be my left court man in doubles." Shields, by this statement, reiterated what the other players already knew: Dick Savitt, indeed, is the man to beat.
* The only players who have won all three: Fred Perry (1934), Don Budge (1938).
*Taken, this week, from the U.S. when Sedgman & McGregor and Don Candy & Mervyn Rose made it an all-Australian final.
* Exception: Trabert, 20, who was dropped last week from the Naval Reserve (seaman) because his tennis duties kept him from attending drill, is now subject to the draft.
* Australia's Adrian Quist is one of many old hands credited with having revamped Savitt's game. Savitt says he is almost entirely self-taught. "Quist and I played once or twice, and of course it helps to play with a guy, but he never gave me any coaching."