Spock approached Russell. ‘I don’t think you should be talking to a child like that. You, of all people, must know how important early childhood is.’
Russell bristled. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t that rather depend on what we mean by “know”?’
When this happened Russell was 6–0 and 4–0. He didn’t win another game. Spock was magnificent.
Highly fancied indigenous phoenix Marcel Proust was back to his best today against the lyrical Puccini. What a comeback this was from the translucent Proust, a touch player whose accuracy has earned him the appellation ‘M. le Drop’, but whose health seems to operate along the lines of a raffle. Everything Puccini does, by contrast, is structured. He often plays three closely contested sets with the brightest sections reserved for the closing moments and the tie-breaks. Against a resurgent Proust he became frustrated and lost concentration. Had he been more adaptable he might have seized the third set but Proust did what a lot of players won’t do when they hit trouble. He took his medicine, learnt his lesson and moved on.
Ambrose Bierce was leading Vincent van Gogh with a set in hand when van Gogh came out and served a game made up completely of double faults, destroying much of the net and removing a section of panelling in the back wall. The laser unit which measures service speed emitted a high-pitched wail, displayed the legend 722 kmh and has not operated since. Van Gogh was in despair.
Bierce needed only to stay out of trouble to go through. Staying out of trouble, however, is not Ambrose Bierce’s long suit and he proposed to the umpire that van Gogh be allowed to serve with no line calls. ‘If the ball is a fault or a shot is out, don’t call it, just keep a record of it. Leave him alone.’ Bierce then sat down and refused to play ‘until you let him play without yelling at him’. No great advocate of the system, Bierce did not attend the opening ceremony, the official American team dinner, the press club luncheon or the sponsors’ banquet. When asked if he had deliberately avoided these functions he said he had no idea they were on. He was disappointed not to have been told, he said, particularly in the case of the sponsors’ banquet, which he would very much have enjoyed deliberately avoiding.
When play resumed, no line calls were made. Freed of the conventions of scoring, van Gogh moved faster, hit the ball with greater topspin and made much better use of the court. He played shots no one else would have attempted in what was a memorable display. Tennis authorities, who an hour and a half earlier had regarded him as a rogue bull, were all over him like cousins as he stood in the bright yellow light signing autographs. Bierce spoke to him briefly, shook him warmly by the hand and left the arena. He hasn’t been seen since. Friends think he may be in Bolivia.
Two players more different in style and attitude than Salvador Dali and Carl Jung would be hard to imagine. Jung is often called upon by other players to help with a footwork problem, a crisis of confidence or a faulty service action. In Sam Beckett’s case, for example, Jung opened up his stance and allowed Beckett to ‘play properly’. He is even capable of analysing himself, or ‘myselves’ as he calls them: the Jung with the talent and the Jung with the brains. He was listed to play doubles with Freud but following a boat-trip during which the Doc accused Jung of resenting him because he was his father, Jung discreetly rearranged his schedule and is now playing doubles by himself.
Dali, who appeared at the launch on a silver tray with an apple in his mouth, says he isn’t trying to work anything out at all and has never approached Jung for advice. As he says, ‘This artist was never a Jung man.’
It was always going to be an absorbing contest and by midway through the second set commentators were sending out for new ways of describing what they were looking at. Jung, a great reader of other players, quickly reaches an understanding of what he’s up against. In Dali’s case he worked out that he was in a confined space with a player who sought a great deal of attention and was beating the pants off him. Dali didn’t work anything out, he just played spectacular tennis although there was debate as to whether the term ‘hat’ adequately covers what Dali had on his head. At some stages Dali himself was barely visible. There was just a ‘swish’ and the ball came flying over the net towards the various Jungs.
Dali was spoken to by authorities following the press call which he attended dressed as Louis XIV. ‘Stand well back,’ he shouted. ‘I need room to masturbate.’
Day 23
Seurat v. Waller • Lardner v. Chaplin • Wittgenstein v. Hasek • Shaw v. Eliot • Stein v. McCarthy • Tolstoy v. Mayakovsky
Georges Seurat’s challenge came unstuck today against Fats Waller, whose warm-up is desultory and who was using a borrowed racquet because he had forgotten his own. ‘Staying at home,’ he muttered. ‘Too tired.’ The minute he starts playing, however, there is nothing else going on. Seurat is an experienced campaigner and is aware of the significance of every point but, even when he pulled Waller back in the second set, Waller took it in a tie-break and ran away again in the third like a kid at a Christmas party.
‘Charlie’s Army’ was out in force today;
