1942: Tennis

In the face of heavy handicaps imposed by loss of players to the armed forces, scarcity of balls and transportation problems, lawn tennis went through the first year of the war without any great reduction in activity.

Contrasting with 1917, the United States Lawn Tennis Association decided to conduct its national championships as such instead of as a patriotic tournament that carried no title. Frederick Schroeder of Glendale, Calif. won the men's championship and Miss Pauline Betz of Los Angeles carried off the women's crown.

With many of the best-known players in the fighting ranks and in view of the fact that a number of the 1941 leaders, including Robert Riggs and Frank Kovacs, went into professional tennis, the quality of the play was not as high as usual. Nevertheless, the crowds stood up well during the tournament at Forest Hills; the AWVS, which shared in the proceeds, realized a tidy sum; and the final between Schroeder and Frank Parker of Hollywood, Calif. was one of the best the championship has known in recent years.

Parker, who remained out of competition in the East except for this one tournament, played exceptionally well and won over the gallery with his remarkable fight. After losing the first two sets, in which he enjoyed substantial leads, Parker came back brilliantly to take the next two, only to yield to the stronger lasting powers of his younger rival in the fifth. The women's final, too, was an exciting struggle in which Miss Betz turned the tables on Miss Louise Brough of Los Angeles, who had won every other women's tournament of the season on grass courts.

Among the players who were missing from the championships were Donald McNeill of Oklahoma City, who won the crown in 1940; Bryan Grant, Joe Hunt, Elwood Cooke, Charles Mattmann, Frank Guernsey, Wilmer Allison, John Van Ryn, Frank Shields, Edward Alloo, Hal Surface, J. Norman Anderson, and Chauncey Steele. All of these were competing for bigger stakes in the uniform of Uncle Sam. Gardnar Mulloy, J. Gilbert Hall, Gilbert Hunt and Russell Bobbitt, all in service, competed on furloughs, and Schroeder, after winning the championship, entered the Navy. Among the women players who were missing were Miss Helen Jacobs, Mrs. Sarah Palfrey Cooke, 1941 champion, and Miss Dorothy May Bundy.

The absence of these players was felt not only at Forest Hills but also at other tournaments throughout the country. Because of the lack of drawing names and also because gas and tire rationing created problems of transporting the players and the public to the matches, a number of clubs canceled their events. These included the Nassau Country Club, the Rockaway Hunting Club, the Orange Lawn Tennis Club and the Piping Rock Club.

The Seabright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club, whose invitation tournament has been one of the classics of tennis for many years, limited its fixture to a three-day round-robin doubles tournament for men. The Meadow Club at Southampton cut down the number of players and held a round-robin singles tournament, along with a doubles event, and the Maidstone Club at East Hampton and the Westchester Country Club at Rye reduced the size and length of their tournaments.

The policy of the United States Lawn Tennis Association was to carry on so far as war conditions permitted and to get as many young players on the courts as possible, to keep themselves in shape prior to their being called into service. The clubs were urged to open their courts to the officers and enlisted personnel of nearby camps. Special holiday tournaments were conducted by member clubs to raise funds for the Red Cross.

Outstanding players of the season included Lieutenant (j. g.) Mulloy, William Talbert, Seymour Greenberg, George Richards, Victor Seixas, Ensign Charles Mattmann, Ladislav Hecht and two South Americans, Francisco (Pancho) Segura of Ecuador and Alejo Russell of Argentina.

Mulloy and Talbert won the national doubles. Talbert defeated Schroeder in the Newport final. Greenberg won the clay court crown. Segura won four tournaments in a row on clay, beating Schroeder in one. He defeated Talbert in the championship before losing to Parker in the semi-finals, and won from Mulloy in the Longwood Bowl classic, revived when the Longwood Country Club gave up the national doubles to be held with the singles at Forest Hills.

Russell, playing in this country for the first time, improved so much that he eliminated Wood in the championship and took a set from Schroeder. John Kramer was missing from the lists in the East, owing to an attack of appendicitis. Segura and Hecht were ranked in the first ten, the first foreign-born players so honored since 1927.

After Miss Betz and Miss Brough, the leading women players were Miss Margaret Osborne, Miss Helen Bernhard, Miss Mary Arnold, Miss Doris Hart, Mrs. Patricia Todd, Mrs. Helen Pedersen Rihbany, Mrs. Madge Vosters, Miss Kay Winthrop and Miss Hope Knowles. Miss Brough and Miss Osborne won the doubles championship.

Professional tennis was definitely a war casualty. The tour of Riggs and Kovacs with Donald Budge and Fred Perry was bedeviled by injuries and finally had to be abandoned owing to cancellations, with Budge well in the lead. Budge won the national professional championship at Forest Hills, defeating Riggs easily in the final after Riggs had put out Kovacs in the semi-finals.

Perry, the big man in professional tennis in 1941, injured his arm so badly on the opening night of the tour at Madison Square Garden in New York that he later announced his permanent retirement from tournament play. Kovacs went into the Army and Budge dropped out of competition to become a physical fitness director.