The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-08-31
NATIONAL TENNIS TOURNEY NARROWS
 DOWN TOFOUR MEN
Vim. Johnson, Tilden, Will Hams or Wallace Johnson Will Be Next Singles
 Champion
III BoR ucDAvIp

Forest Hills, N. r., August 30.-The new national lawn tennis title holder will be evolved from among Wil---n M. Johnston of San Francisco, " lace F. Johnson, Villa !. T. Tilden, Ed, both of Philadel- phia, and R. Norris Williams of Boston, today's play in the na- tional turf singles champion ship having marked the passing of the last famous Australian Davis cup stars and the Ameri- can title holder of 12 months ago.
 Norman E. Brookes fell before the tor nado-like drives and smashes of Tilden, while R. Lindley Murray of Niagara Falls, who won the championship from Tilden year ago, bowed before the racquet wizardry of Johnston. Along with Brookes went Maurice 1. McLaugh- lin of Los Angeles, who five years ago on this same strip of Westside club tur1 defeated Brookes and Anthony Wilding in the greatest Davis cup matches ever witnessed in any part of the world. Brookes made a far better showing i'll his elimination match against Tiloen than Mclaughlin when opposed by Williams. notwithstanding that the Australian is rnany years older.
 Tilden defeated Brookes 3-6 6-4, 7-5, 6-3, but not until the veteran had given a remarkable exhibition of the court play which has made him famous in all lands where tennis is in vogue. The tall Phil adSphian employed stunning speed and power in almost all his strokes, and had it not been for the fact that this power was mixed with extreme wildness, would have won in all probability in straight sets.
 TILDEN'S SERVICE GREAT
 His service today was beyond any, thing ever seen on a tennis court here, the ball coming off his racquet like a white streak with a speed that far ex- ceeded anything ever shown by Me- Loughlin when the latter was at the zenith of his form. Tilden scored no less than 16 clean service aces and in ad- dition forced Brookes to commit many more errors in his attempt to return these rifle-like shots An fact, it was speed alone that threw Brookes so com
 
 chose to slow up the old masters play immediately took impressiveness But even at these times the Philadelphian by his remarkably accurate lobbying and ruzzling change of pace scored or caused Brookes to net or out the ball for points.
 In defeating Murphy, the 1918 cham pion, Johnston showed a continuation of the form which enabled him to eliminate Patterson yesterday. The match also showed the versatility and court strategy of Johnston's game. Whereas, on Friday Johnston forced Patterson to come close to the net and play low shots around his feet, today he endeavored with fair suc- cess to keep Murray in the back of the court where he could not employ his smashes and drives foH sure placements points.
 The play aroused the gallery, which was a capacity crowd notwithstanding the occasional rains of the forenoon to great pitches of enthusiasm, and brought about outburs ts of handclapping which sounded like the rapid fire of machine guns. The match ended with peculiar feature in that Murray's last return, which appeared to be unreturnable, hit the top of the net and hesitating momen- tarily in it's flight, finally jumped out of court at right angles to it's original direction.
 The other matches of the day were less stiff1y contested. Mclaughlin showed that he was but a shell of the former super-ten player, who virtually revo- lrtjonized the game in a manner which made him known in all parts of the world He was unable to cope with Williams at any time when the latter desired to win points. and the thousands of spectators, eager to cheer the most popular of all American players. found few occasions upon which to show the;r loyalty and admiration.
 Hall found the chop strokes and slicing returns of Johnston hard to handle, es- pecially on the heavy turf, and although he tried for every return he was com pletely outplayed and never in a posi- tion where he appeared to have. more than an outside chance of winning