‘Mr van Gogh,’ he said. ‘You must stop it. We are here to play tennis.’
‘I am playing tennis,’ said van Gogh.
‘You are not playing tennis the way tennis is played,’ said the umpire.
‘I am hitting a tennis ball with a tennis racquet,’ said the troubled Dutchman, ‘in tennis clothing, on a tennis court, in a tennis tournament. I am, in fact, currently talking to a tennis umpire.’
‘You are too wild, too fierce,’ said the umpire. ‘Who is your coach?’
‘Coach? I play as I see,’ said van Gogh as he walked back to his place.
Cavafy, for his part, played classical tennis. His racquets were of the small-headed, wooden-framed variety and each was contained within a racquet-press. He stood well up to receive but when van Gogh gets onto his serve it can really motor, and time and again the Greek maintained his frieze-like position as the ball scorched down the backhand side and slammed into the canvas behind him. After a while, van Gogh’s primitive swinging began to produce results and the Cavafy service game, lovely to watch and based on the eternal verities, took on an air of infinite sadness.
There were further shocks for American tennis in the late afternoon. Californian Ray Chandler was on court for two hours and fifty-seven minutes today trying to cut himself free of Uruguayan qualifier José Rodo, who has been critical of the game in America and likes nothing more than an opponent who has done well there. Chandler learnt his tennis in England and has good technique coupled with American confidence. Plagued by injuries, he has sometimes missed entire seasons, so is seldom in the business of putting together a demanding fortnight of five-set matches. He lost today, but only just and has lost so many times now he says if he ever won anything he’d walk into a door getting up to collect it.
‘Rodo was good,’ he said. ‘He had good feet. He got to the ball like an anaesthetist with an early tee-time. Last night was beginning to look like a bad idea. The “little sleep” theory needed work and I made a note to talk to the guy in charge of the daylight. Way too bright. I pushed a few back and tried to remember what I was doing here. Everywhere I looked there were people, like extras in some meaningless advertisement. Just faces. And some legs. I preferred the legs.
‘I lost a game and got something wet from the court-side fridge. I tried to sip it but I wasn’t fooling anyone. The place was a mess. Someone could clean up later. Right now I had to think. I went out again and bent a couple at the guy up the other end. A dame behind me yelled, “Out.” She was right. It was that sort of a day.’
Day 8
Muir v. Galsworthy • Wolfe v. Cummings • Fitzgerald v. Neruda • Nin v. West • Sayers v. Yourcenar • Stopes v. Moore • Porter v. Pankhurst • Pavlova v. Dietrich
It was a treat this morning to watch the resourceful Scot Edwin Muir jump for joy after his unexpected win over big John Galsworthy. ‘It was like a dream,’ he said. ‘A mythological dream of some sort.’ Muir’s main game is to play doubles with his pal Wally Benjamin and if he can pick up a little business in the singles it’s always a bonus.
‘It’s just great to be here,’ he said in his Robbie Burns brogue. ‘Fantastic. Och, there are some gae bonny players here the noo. I was watching Bing Crosby wi’ Walt Disney on yon practice courts yesterday. Ver’ different from ain another but both brilliant.’ ‘What is the difference?’ quizzed Mailer, doing the rounds.
‘The difference?’ said Muir. ‘Bing sings. But Walt disney.’
Americans Tom Wolfe and Ted Cummings, both very fit players of great power, came out and for two and a half hours they stood and delivered. Wolfe has a huge booming serve and Cummings, who serves underarm, has a return as good as any in the game. Their media call after the match was also a contrast in styles. Wolfe spoke for some time about being in Paris for the first time.
Cummings recalled being in France some years ago in baffling circumstances. ‘I remember an ambulance and a train accident and I think I was arrested and then I was back in every our town blooming in the blossoms in the sweet time is our time is my time six love.’
Another rising star to make an appearance today was the popular Scott Fitzgerald, who looks to many Europeans to be the quintessential American and to many Americans like something out of a play. He looked sluggish and there have been suggestions he is suffering from a virus. He was lucky to get home in the first-set tie-break against clay-court exponent Pablo Neruda, but after that it was all the Chilean. If you’ve never seen Chileans celebrate, get along to Neruda’s second-round match.
The women’s draw offered its own pleasures today. This was no surprise to Anaïs Nin. ‘The women’s draw is pleasure,’ she said after going down to Rebecca West. ‘That is its purpose. That is its destiny.’ West, who came here as a junior (as Cicily Fairfield), was sharp all day and goes through. Nin was full of praise. ‘She was wonderful,’ she said of West. ‘Absolutely wonderful. I’ll never forget it.’
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