Also good in the heat were Daisy Bates, who grew up playing in Australia and only took her cardigan off at 2–2 in the second set, and Josephine Baker who romped through her match against Russian icon Goncharova and then went for ‘a light run’.
French hopes were raised today when local prodigy Eric Satie hit his straps against Rudolf Carnap.
The thoughtful German looked sharp early, hitting the ball crisply and playing to a plan. Satie, however, is no mean strategist himself and doesn’t seem to mind who he’s playing. ‘In this caper,’ he said, ‘you’re really playing yourself, although this process is influenced by how others are playing.’
Carnap worked on his timing and space and kept Satie on the run in the heat. Satie did the opposite and just about drove Carnap mad, returning the ball again and again to the same point. Carnap would move, preparing himself, waiting for the inevitable change in the routine. Then back would come another shot, exactly the same.
‘It’s not actually the same shot,’ Satie explained. ‘Some are hard, some are soft, some have topspin, some have backspin, some float. And the context changes; the ninth is different from the first. It looks the same but it isn’t. It’s the ninth.’
Ira Gershwin was over the moon in the media tent this afternoon. ‘S’wonderful,’ he said. ‘Strike up the band.’ Brother George, with whom he’s playing in the doubles, had just fought his way back from two sets down and 0–4 to get up and beat the brilliant Catalonian Andrés Segovia. Inspired by the performance of his compatriots Waller, Armstrong and Ellington this week, George has been practising with them, enjoying his game more and playing more in their style. Segovia is an elegant player and has remarkable hands. Time and again he hit what looked like drives deep to the back corners but at the last minute he rolled his wrists over and they became drop shots of the greatest delicacy. In the end, however, it was Gershwin’s new style of play and sheer persistence which got him over the line.
In the most entertaining match of the day the popular Charlot had a win over Hoagland Carmichael. Carmichael’s serve lacked control, especially with Chaplin dancing around it and banging it back at his ankles as he followed it in. ‘Charlie’s got everything worked out,’ he explained, ‘but he makes it all look so simple you want to reach out and pat him on the head.’
As Chaplin attempted to leave the media conference, a camera crew barged through the door and pinned him against the wall. When the door swung back he fell flat on the floor. An official came in and Chaplin rather surprisingly kicked him firmly in the seat of the pants and fell over again. When the official turned around Chaplin was lying on the floor. The official took a swing at Hoagy who had bent over to help Chaplin and belted the concrete wall instead. Chaplin stood up, kicked the official in the pants again and fell over. This happened four times. The official finally realised it was Chaplin who was kicking him and chased him around a table at high speed until Chaplin opened the door and the hapless official hurtled back out into the main concourse and sprinted into a display of oranges.
This joyous mood did not survive the Thomas Hardy–Arthur Koestler match. Hardy once again clashed with officials over the treatment of the waitressing staff, one of whom became distressed when Koestler claimed she was making too much noise. Hardy protested that this was unfair. ‘If she goes, I go,’ he said.
After an in-camera hearing, during which Hardy kept the crowd in their seats with some haunting stories, it was revealed that Koestler will be questioned about a number of incidents involving other young women. A sobering and most unexpected development.
The night-match featured the hardworking John Steinbeck coming home to take the points in an all-out scrap with England’s Evelyn Waugh.
‘Dreadful oik,’ Waugh said. ‘Americans are of two kinds. The rich and more moronic type of show-off and the poor, many of whom are racially disadvantaged or insane. Dreadful oiks with German names fall into the latter class but with pretensions to the former.’
Steinbeck, clearly irritated, rallied in the third set. He upped the volume on his serve and hit the ball from both sides with great ferocity. Waugh seemed to lose his touch and his unforced errors gave the fifth set to the American.
‘Waugh imagines he’s quite a character,’ said Steinbeck. ‘But there are kids out there watching who’ve got no money and think they’ve got no chance of playing this game. I wanted to show them that they have. It’s a hell of a fight. But they can do it.’
There was a minor sensation late this evening when French journalist Roland Barthes was asked to step into the Committee Room, where a heated exchange took place concerning his comment in Thursday’s edition of Paris-Match. Barthes contended that the game has undergone such fundamental change that the relationship between the commentators and the crowd is now the principal intellectual contract. In effect, he said, the player is dead.
Sources say discussions with the chairman of the committee reached an impasse when Barthes was asked whether his comments were in the nature of a personal opinion. He observed that, since he was a writer employed to report on the game, his personal opinion was also going to become the personal opinion of many other people.
The chairman advanced the view that, if the age of the player was over, Mr Barthes could spare himself the trouble of attending the remainder of the tournament.
Barthes replied that, since the discussion of the event was more important than the event itself, it was immaterial whether he attended it or not. The significant thing would be what he wrote about it.
‘You won’t be able to write much about it if you don’t see it, will you, sunshine?’ said the chairman.
‘You obviously
