Waiting for Kramer
By KENNETH GREGORY
THE best male stroke player in Wimbledon wore. a Quidnuncs cap. He was on the golf course and his touch with a five iron was magical. On the other side of the road I detected a draught. It may have been sociological (1 object to ticket touts being fined for wilfully obstructing the free passage of the footway when they should be fined for offering me a Centre Court ticket for `only seven quid'), it may even have been political as the young Russian Lejus took a set off the number one seed. Perhaps I was sorrowful that the mink used by Signorina Pericoli to trim her skirt should have so little effect on an opponent from behind the Iron Curtain; perhaps I recalled the dismal failure of Wimbledon's attempt to raise money by offering 940 debentures at a Minimum tender price of £350 each. More likely I realised that 1 was present at the end of the beginning; on Wednesday next the International Lawn Tennis Federation may well decide to open next year's tournaments to professionals. Wimbledon may never be the same again.
Not that I imagine the press box will change. The News Chronicle will continue to wear its Monocle, the Express to exude bonhomie from behind a large cigar as it envisages the headline Christine! Slam! Wham! Whoosh!' I shall doubtless long cherish the actor-manager coiffure of the Times and choice phrases like `Gimeno, the Catalan with the face of an El Greco,' and the diabolical glee with which the distinguished etymologist, Mr. Eric Partridge, conjures up a word to apply to the unsuccessful British player Who has just hurled down his racket. I do not imagine that Wimbledon will cease to attract a fashion display on the first Monday, strawberries and cream for the whole fortnight, and serenely confident lieutenant-colonels in blazers who walk a couple of paces behind their women muttering Incomparable!' The organisation of Wimbledon is incomparable and so apt 'to be taken for granted.
It is also incomparable as a museum. On Court 6 two crew-cut American college boys stare disbelievingly as they are welcomed in faultless English by the winner of the men's singles title 1...o 1924. They continue to stare as they lose the first set; they might be discovering that Jean Borotra, long flannels hitched to reveal his ankles, his hair no longer covered by a beret, is old enough to be their grandfather. But if we suspect that Borotra appears simply to convince us we are still young, what are we to make of the Centre Court's Visiting Professor of American History, Gardnar Mulloy? Once a great doubles player and partner of Billy Talbert, Mulloy was a force in American tennis before the war. Yet at forty-six he is capable of mesmerising Britain's Davies with a succession of effortlessly produced service aces, backhand passing shots and volleys. As Mulloy strolled around the court, in time to some celestial chaconne, Davies must have felt that in a well-ordered society the Miami lawyer would long ago have been obliged to join the emeritus ranks.
`I am not incomparable,' wrote Max. 'Compare me.' So with Wimbledon. Financially it is some- what betwixt and between. A ring-side seat at the recent Johansson-Patterson bout cost £35, and admittance to the Portmarnock course for the Canada Cup golf tournament £1. Those who sub- mitted tenders for a reserved seat on the Centre Court for the five years 1961-65 have paid at the rate of £6 12s. a day. Unreserved seats, allotted by ballot, cost 25s. In hard terms, this prompts the question: do Fraser, Mackay, Laver and company mean in tennis what two heavyweights do in boxing and Snead, Palmer, Locke, Player and the rest in golf?. Such a question is best answered indirectly. Only three times during the past eight seasons has the men's singles title at Wimbledon been defended; since 1952 Sedgman, Trabert, Hoad, Cooper and Olmedo have joined the professional ranks, likewise McGregor and Rosewall, who between them reached three finals. Translated into boxing terms, Wimbledon now offers a series of matches between Olympic con- tenders.
Cynics and businessmen will retort that in this case Wimbledon is an anachronism. But Wimble- don is not designed to appeal to cynics and businessmen; it attracts the young in heart and the connoisseur who is willing, once inside the All England Club, to exist in a vacuum. The pleasures of Wimbledon are both simple and complex, the cries of the crowd when a British player hits a winner as heartless as those of the non-RSPCA members at a bull fight. Poor Rose- wall never forgot the partisan emotions aroused when he met Drobny, a Czech with an Egyptian passport and an English wife, in the 1954 final. A Wimbledon crowd can wallow in sentimen- tality; half an hour later with an Indian playing a Spaniard it becomes a jury before which any innocent man would feel safe.
The pleasures of Wimbledon are simple. as witness the thrill when a Chief Petty Officer salutes (I almost wrote pipes) the Duchess of Kent into the Royal Box. when the players pause on their way to the umpire's chair, turn and bow to her. As a rule Australians do not bow well.
Mulloy, on the other hand, achieves something —if not of a grand seigneur, at least of Benjamin Franklin. The pleasures of Wimbledon are com- plex, as witness the amusement of the cognoscenti as some unfortunate umpire finds himself volley- ing the names of Gimeno, Arilla, Contreras and Llamas in accents which vary from Madrid to Cheltenham by way of Bangalore. The pleasures of Wimbledon are sometimes akin to prayer as a dozen rich saris appear from nowhere to watch the progress of Krishnan. Only sari- wearers could fully appreciate the Eastern philo- sophy which governs the Indian's exquisite touch.
The star of this year's championships was un- doubtedly Miss Bueno from Brazil. Of her it might almost be said that it does not matter whether she wins, such is her genius for the game. At her best she is a class above the next half- dozen women in the world, at her worst a claw -below. There are, of course, many partisans who would like to see Miss Bueno beaten just as there are those who would derive pleasure from watch- ing Wolves beat Real Madrid. Of Miss Bueno alone among contemporary women players can it be said that at her regal best, with the wonderful service shattering her opponent's rhythm and her ease about court making tennis look so absurdly easy, she would make a Wills Moody. a Marble or a Connolly think very hard indeed. In fact I doubt if any woman has ever played better than Miss Bueno does—for one set in each championship.
Yet most memorable about Wimbledon 1960 (for we have seen Miss Bueno before and I pray that we shall often see her again) was the male fashion show on the second day. He was very tall, very blond, with hair hanging down his neck. His cigarette holder carved intricate pat- terns on the air and the other hand held a Peter Cheyney paperback. On his head he wore a boater with I Zingari ribbon, on his feet red sandals. As he walked to his sports car he spoke to his (or someone else's) fiancée of the tennis.
`Tro‘uble is there are no supermen at Wimble- don this year.' I swear that in the back of the car I noticed an LP record of Heldenleben.
Meanwhile the tennis world has been awaiting the outcome of the deliberations in Paris.
Rumour has it that Britain favours open tourna- ments in 1961, also that the LTA wants prize money to be limited to £100. As Kramer, the President of World Tennis, Inc., wants £5,000 as well as hotel and travelling expenses, there is room for compromise. Granted such compromise, there remains the seeding problem. If Kramer enters his top eight players next year the seeding committee may nominate all eight of them (so acknowledging that Wimbledon 1960 meant little so far as achievement was concerned) or select four professionals and four amateurs. In this case there might well be first-round matches between Gonzales and Olmedo, Hoad and Cooper, Rosewall and Sedgman, Trabert and Segura. Whichever way you look at it Kramer seems capable of dealing out as many aces as he did in the days when his own service was timed at 107 m.p.h.
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