Evening star., 1937-01-23

" frederick WILLIAM PERRY,
l. the now legitimate English
tennis professional who will
move into Maryland Univer-
sity's coliseum on Monday to play
Ellsworth Vines. says that open net
tournaments still are at least Is years
away.
When Mr.. Perry made the state
ment attributed to him only couple
DAYS ago. observers imagined they de-
tected a shudder pass through the
entire pro tennis realm. The moneyed
clan, you see. needs the open tour
neys, in which amateurs play with
pros. more than the Simon-pures
(heh, heh) need them.
An amateur. as long as he is a
pretty good player, cultivates a Har-
ward accent and keeps his fiannels
white. is pretty sure of making a hy-
ing on expense accounts.
The hysteria for winning the
Davis Cup every year promises
to live on and on and as long
as it exists the amateurs always
are sure of liberal expenses.
But the pro outlook, for all OF this
current business of Vines playing
Perry, Is not bright. The moneyed
gang has been playing in luck. Few
great tennis players have been COM
ing up in recent years and those who
have-Vines, Perry and one or two
lesser lights-somehow have been
lured into volleying for money.
Pro Material Becoming Scarce.
RUT now good potential pro ma
- terial is becoming scarce. 1t has
been pointed out, not without logic,
that a pro tennis player is good for
only "once around" meaning that
after he is starred on the billing once
at all the major cities he no longer
is a gate attraction and must be
supplanted.
That Is why. f'rinstance. Per-
ry Is getting 3714 per cent Of
the receipts on the current tour.
while Vines drags down only
1212 per cent. We all saw Vines
last year.
OF the amateurs now rated as the
best professional prospects only one
Donald Bulge. is an American. The
others are Gottfried Won Cramm. the
German, whom Perry rates as the No
amateur, and Jack Crawford, the
Australian.
On what he has shown so far,
Bulge is not a great tennis player
and is likely to fall far short, as a
pro, of the box-ofice standards set
by Tilden, Vines and Perry. The Cali
fornian Is too erratic and too suscep-
tible for blowing up at the wrong
times. OF Won Cramm it is said
that he is not likely TO give up his
amateur status and nearly all the
boys who swing racquets say that
Crawford is slipping fast.
British Brass Hats Dictate.
IF THE Vines-Perry rivalry follows
precedent, 1t will be ripe for discard
after they finish the current tour
The Tilden- Vines series did. So did
the Tilden-Karl Kozeluth and the TIL
den Richards tours. Thus 1t becomes
obvious that pro tennis will need a
shot in the arm and right now it
begins to look as If an open tourna-
ment is one OF the games few rays
Of hope.
What Perry predicted. then,
comes as . shock to the boys
who play tennis for funds. The
optimistic are inclined to be-
lieve that Perry was using typi-
cal English caution, mixed with
. little modesty.
These people believe that now that
Perry is no longer an amateur. the
British tennis fathers, who practi-
cally dictate the United States poll
cies, will sanction open tournaments
almost any day. The reason the brass
hats with the broad "a's" have barred
such q tourney 30 far. it is said. was
because they feared that II an open