Evening star., 1941-01-05
Field Is Best Matched
Since Helen Wills
Scored in 1923
Crown Could Be Taken
By Any Maid Among 20;
Miss Jacobs Ais
BY SAM JACKSON.
Associated Press Sports Writer.

AScOSldCcd 4cSo SpOA 70 WillcIs
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 4.-With
Alice Marble in the professional
ranks, wide-open race is on for the
title of queen of American tennis.
Not since pig-tailed, poker-faced
Helen Wills won the championship
at the age of 16-this was way back
in l923-has there been such we'll
matched field. There is no domi-
nant contender. Any one of score
of girls may triumph at Forest Hills
next summer, and gain the honors
and potential fortune which few. If
any other, sports offer to woman.
The race is being incubated in
California, from which Helen Wills,
Helen Jacobs and Alice Marble hail
and which, on the basis of official
rankings, possesses the majority of
serious contenders. Local matches
will be watched closely during the
winter. but real line on prospective
champions is scarcely possible until
the big Eastern tournaments of 1941.
On the record, Helen Hull Jacobs
must be considered the girl to beat.
he ldSS "do lldtloAlol
champion from 1882 through 1885,
and in the 1910 playoff she was too
good for every young upstart but not
good enough for Queen Alice.
Helen Jacobs Slipping?
Miss Jacobs is 80, an age at which
most athletes are considered to have
passed their peak, and her health
is not perfect. She had hard time
eliminating Virginia Wolfenden of
San Francisco in the quarter-flnals
at Forest Hills, and when the Cali
fornia State championships rolled
around she was defeated by her
young neighbor.
Here are the 1910 official rankings
Of the first 10:
Alice Marble, California (pro).
Helen Hull Jacobs, California.
Pauline Betz, California.
Dorothy Bundy. California.
Gracyn Wheeler Kelleher, Cali
fornia.
Sarah Palfrey Cooke, California.
Virginia Wolfenden, California.
Helen Bernhard, New York.
Mary Arnold, California.
Hope, Knobs, Pennsylvania.
The talk among coaches and
other close observers in this tennis
center does not follow these rank
ings. While conceding the expert
ence of Helen Jacobs and the i'm
pressive record of the half dozen
girls listed beneath her. they favor
some of the up and coming" girls
some of them only in their middle
teens.
Helen Bernhard of New York Is
one of these, as are Louis Brough of
Los Angeles and Margaret Osborne
of San Francisco
Virginia WoIfenden a Threat.
Everybody comedies a chance to
pretty Virginia Wolfenden, the Pa
cifc Coast champion Her admirers
say she'd have gone to the finals at
Forest Hills had she not been tired
from transforming tour. Virginia
works for living, but continues her
tennis through the winter.
Opinion among coaches is that too
few of the talented girl players of
today have the tough, masculine will
to win which characterized Helen
Wills and her successors. They feel
that in the wide open contests ahead
the killer" instinct may decide the
battle.
In these wartimes the value of
the woman's singles championship is
not what it was. In happier years
the queens of American tennis made
trip after trip abroad, were presented
to royalty and lavishly entertained.
They wrote books, sold paintings, de-
signed clothes. Alice Marble is to
receive $4,000 for professional
tour with percentages which may
run up to S25,000 more.
The next champion may get Moth
ing but the eight weeks a year travel
maintenance which amateur rules
allow.