There was also tragedy on Court 6 this morning for German-American George Grosz, who was stretchered off following a very nasty fall. He was leaping for an overhead when he seemed to lose balance and plunged to the ground. He had been playing well and was on terms in his match with Russian Sergei Prokofiev.
‘It is always the way,’ said Prokofiev. ‘I got through to the fourth round in the Russian championship one year and by the time I got home my cat was dead, my bicycle had been stolen and I was being denounced as a decadent formalist.’
In a shock result on an outside court, August Strindberg, another of the brilliant Swedes, was filleted by the wily Englishman Thomas Hardy. Play was delayed when a waitress was fired for dropping a tray of drinks in one of the hospitality areas. Hardy approached the umpire and asked if there wasn’t something they could do to help the young woman.
As the incident had occurred outside the court and between points, the umpire explained, it was outside his jurisdiction.
Hardy submitted that, since play had been delayed to accommodate the incident, and since the incident was witnessed by the entire crowd, it was, in terms of time and structure, part of the match; therefore the rules of the game should apply. The young woman should be recalled and the drinks served again.
The umpire summoned Strindberg and explained that the match referee could be consulted if it were the wish of both players.
‘What’s the point?’ said Strindberg.
‘The man is asking whether we should get the match referee,’ said Hardy. ‘The obvious answer is “yes”.’
‘There is no answer,’ said Strindberg. ‘Life is hideous.’
‘Play,’ said the umpire.
But Hardy’s mind was elsewhere. He served eight consecutive double-faults and made little effort to return Strindberg’s service. Strindberg took the set 6–1 and Hardy sat for a long time with a towel over his head before coming out again. He played like a different man. Mid-way through the third set the despondent Swede was banging his racquet on the ground and conversing with the sky on a range of issues.
Two seeded women went through today. Gertrude Stein was in trouble early against exotic Dutchwoman Mata Hari who spun a web over the first set and it took every bit of the American’s strength to get out from under it. ‘A win is a win is a win,’ said Stein. ‘I played well enough just well enough yes well enough and well enough.’
Virginia Stephen-Woolf had an easier time with the stylish Italian Elsa Schiaparelli and spoke after the match of having seen Sarah Bernhardt practising. ‘She is magnificent and what a booming serve. It’s so very hard to get good service these days.’
But was she happy with the way she played?
‘Not bad. But it would be nice to get a boom of one’s own.’
There were plenty of empty seats out on Court 1 tonight for the match between Elias Canetti and Sam Beckett. A solitary bare tree stood against the sky and the contest began bleakly for Beckett, the Bulgarian passing him on both sides at will.
‘If he works out what you’re thinking,’ Beckett said later, ‘he can take you apart.’ But Beckett was nothing if not patient. He waited. In fact waiting probably won him the match because by the time he’d finished waiting he was hitting the ball beautifully.
‘I was lucky,’ said Beckett.
‘I couldn’t work out what he was thinking,’ said Canetti.
‘I wasn’t thinking anything,’ said Beckett.
‘Nothing?’ asked Canetti.
‘No. Not nothing,’ said Beckett. ‘I wasn’t thinking anything at all.’
Day 7
Mead v. Duncan • Disney v. Strachey • Cavafy v. van Gogh • Chandler v. Rodo
Margaret Mead was exposed this afternoon by a terrifically energetic performance from Isadora Duncan. In a folkloric display, Duncan drew on European traditions and Mead capitalised on the Samoan style but threw in ‘a few of my own ideas as well’.
Duncan was delighted with her win although if she keeps playing in long flowing robes she runs the risk of serious injury. ‘It feels fantastic,’ she said. ‘I feel like a river running.’ She may feel like a river but she has only to step on her own hem while accelerating across court and the flow will slow to a trickle. Great to watch but fraught with danger.
The feature match of the morning session was unfortunately something of a fizzer. American college sensation Walt Disney has won more money on the tour in the past year than his opponent today has made in his life. He has sponsorship deals running out his ears and knows only one type of game, which he describes as ‘winning’. He may have to put his game on ice for a while after the sobering experience of ‘winning’ only two games against Lytton Strachey, a gangling Englishman to whom he hardly spoke.
Celebrity guest Oscar Wilde reported that he and his friend Whistler are ‘enjoying proceedings enormously. We love the tennis and we’ve just had some blueberries. As I’ve always suspected, Whistler is a confirmed Blueberryist.’
‘The blueberries you eat?’
‘One doesn’t eat blueberries. One drifts through schools of them, mouth open. Blueberries are the plankton of the high teas.’
‘How can one eat something without putting it in one’s mouth?’
‘Only with a great deal of practice.’
‘It seems self-contradictory.’
‘Self-contradiction is the soul of wisdom and the basis of the British postal system.’
‘The British postal system? How so?’
‘Every day millions of envelopes are placed in pillar-boxes. Indeed I’m told this occurs even in parts of Shropshire. Each envelope displays an address which, by virtue of being elsewhere, is the direct opposite of the location of the pillar-box. It is this contradiction to which the postal system must…’
‘Address itself?’ speculated Whistler.
‘Exactly so.’
In the highlight of the day’s live television coverage, we saw the Egyptian-born Greek Cavafy from Alexandria up against Holland’s Vincent van Gogh who lives in Arles and is regarded by many as French. Vangers is regarded by
