The Daily Alaska empire., 1930-01-16
Sport SlantS ALAN J.0oulD


 1880 will be an American Davis Cup campaign without Big Bill Tilden, For the first time in ten years; for the first time since he and Lit tie Bill Johnston swept the Aus tralians off the tennis peak in 1920, the tall Philadelphian artist will be missing from one of the most colorful of all international scrambles in sport
 T-ildcn will not quit altogether. I-e ted me last year he intended to play tournament tennis as long as they would accept the entry of doddering old man. He will campaign at home as well as abroad this year
 A decade of brilliant competition has inspired Big Bill to flights with his typewriter. In American Lawn Tennis he writes:
 Ten years is short time in a mans life. I was 2S when I first won the CNationaD Championship, almost an, old man as athletes go. Today, at 36, am considered all most a marvel of antiquity, regarded somewhat like the ruins of Pom peii or the Great Wall of China. Yet over that decade what has actually happened?
 Ut is not age or physical decay that has hit me, or that has hit any champion of sport who is under 40 or 45. Never in my life have I been as fit physically and mentally as during the past sea- son. A man of 36 is not seriously slowing up physically, but cham pion in any sport who has stood at or near the top for a decade, a target for all to shoot at, inevitably must feel and fall before the men tai pressure of his position.
 "Ten years ago I was tennis player of crude game, incomplete experience, uncertain physical re- serve and, above all, an overwhelm- ing will to win. Over the crudi- ties of the game, lack of experi- ence or physical reserve, this will to win rose in it's might and swept me to victory. .. The will to win ambition, call it what you will would drive me on above handi- caps and even above better players It is the will to win that makes champions like Bobby Jones, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and Henri Cochet It is its los that causes their downfall
 T retired my first national cham. pionship trophy in 1922 when won my third title. When that tournament ended I felt that had done all that there was to dt in tennis Then came the los! of the end of my second finger and with it the challenge to my tennis. Was I through as a ten, his player? Everyone believed was. So did I, but it was a chal lenge that could not go unanswered Within me rose once more tht wild urge of the will to win. Thi! new urge carried me two years The rise of the French stars anC their magnificent game, which il it's superiority to our style was { challenge to my tennis intelligence is all that has kept me in tenni for the past four years-that anf the partnership and friendship O my pal-Frank Hunter"
 Tilden pays a magnificent tribut' to his French rivals when he write that. even if he regained his ol' form and will to win, it would m longer lead the world as 1t ono did, for in Lacoste and Cochet on finds players who at their best ar greater than I ever was" Then h adds:
 T have gone back as far as the have gone ahead Today it re uuires a big thing to light within me once more the flaming will t win. A man has only so muc competitive athletics in him an I have played mine. That is wh I am definitely retiring from an American official team, Davis Gu or otherwise, because no longer wi my will to win rise above the pett