Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1933-07-10
FIGURES TO REACH
PEAK IN CUP PLAY
French Outlook Darkens as
Cochet Shows Leaning
to P0rtIineSS.
BY LAWRENCE PERRY.

n YEW YORK, July 10.-Jack
nj Crawford's defeat of Ellis
/ Y worth Vines in the VIM
I bledon tennis champion
ships is no fateful augury of how
the American Davis Cup team will
fare against the French.
Vines has never been one to
play consistent tennis until he
has rounded into form after a
period of competition, and the
Australian star simply caught him
when he was not geared up to his
best play.
The important thing is that
young Vines is coming along to
his top form, which will show in
the Davis Cup matches, whereas
the mainstay of the French team,
the veteran Henri Cochet, is 60
ing in the other direction.
American tennis enthusiasts have nc
reason at all to love Cochet, consid-
ering his long status as barrier to
our efforts to return the Davis Cup to
this country. Nonetheless, there can
not fail to be q general feeling of sport
ing regret over signs he Is giving OF q
deterioration which Is the price ad-
vancing years exact Of an athlete.
It began last year, when he fell be-
fore Vines in the Davis Cup match;
when later Wilmer Allison carried him
to five sets In the semi final round Of
the national singles at Forest Hills and
Vines next day conquered him in the
final
Points for Big Battle.
"HIS year Cochet faltered in pre-
liminary matches in France, and
at Wimbledon his young Ameri-
can nemesis, Vines, blasted him out of
the semi-final round. He Is canny
and gears himself for supreme tests
as no other player does. So when the
crucial test comes, the challenge
round Of the Davis Cup, he will dis
play better form, undoubtedly, than
has marked his game thus far this
season. He might, indeed, galvanize
himself into pretty close semblance
Of what he was
The fact, however, seems to be that
II ILLS happens IL WILL NC d luldl pidAe,
the suddenly restored brilliancy of a
dying incandeScent lamp just before
it goes out for good.
For Frances leading hope is looking
down an ever-lengthening perspective
since the day when he was ball boy
at Lyons, or, in terms OF his playing
career since he won his first imror-
tant tile, the French military ch~--
r.crship, il 1921
Ci course, If he were T1loen
Is TO telling how long he might re. II
Ton the summit CT international ter
r.. (E--Ce~t opinion is that Big Bi
st = sS:;l is tho worlds gr"~ ,c.e.
VI c,D
LIZ Cochet physically lden.
+, IS CT chunky habit, vii - .enden-y
toward rotundity, whereas Big Bill is
ere CT tlo-e phenomenal human COM
b.nct ems of statuesque bone, muscle
and indurated tissue designed by nature
to Withstand ravages Of age to which
the average man is heir.
IIENRI is giving slight impression
of dignif1ed portliness on the
court these days, and when he
can avoid his backhand by doing a run
around he does not hesitate to reveal
this hint of waning prowess.
If his star Is thus waning and he can
not through supreme effort recall what
he has lost, the Davis Cup, so far as
France is concerned, is indeed in dan
ger-unless some unforeseen lapse in
form or other break upsets the Amer
lean campaign.
The plight of the French reminds one
of the situation in this country when
Bill johnson yielded to his years and
Tilden lost Just enough Of his edge to
prevent his bearing the burden alone;
when the Four French Musketeers, Co.
Chef, I.acoste. Borotra and Brugnon,
bore aloft the tri-color. Conceivably
through last gasp the French might
keep the trophy another year, but with
Cochet and Borotra failing and no
youngsters Of great promise in sight, a
new cycle Of Davis Cup supremacy is
mt far awav