Anna Akhmatova was focused from the moment she came out for the women’s final. Her presence was a testimony to endurance. After a promising career as a junior, she seemed headed for the Russian national squad but was taken to task by her coaches for her playing style. She silenced her critics when she won the Russian Open but, in the weeks following, her husband was killed. After a break from the game she came back and again won the national title. She was then banned from playing altogether and her son and second husband were imprisoned. Once more she disappeared from the circuit.
All the time, however, she worked on her game; she studied the play of Chekhov and Pushkin, Blok, Pasternak and Mandelstam, and she maintained her fitness. She arrived in Paris as part of the national team but, as with many of her fellow players, she represented both a tribute and a threat to Russian tennis. Akhmatova had strong wins against Pearl Buck and Elizabeth Bowen, got past Josephine Baker and then bamboozled top Englishwoman Virginia Stephen-Woolf before knocking out number four seed Sarah Bernhardt. If anyone has earned a place in a final here it is Akhmatova.
Millay also had an interrupted preparation. Impressive wins in the first few rounds preceded penetration of the Stopes defence and an outflanking of the Pavlova attack. Her next match was cancelled after the unexpected death of Bessie Smith and since that time Millay has not picked up a racquet. She has been out every night with friends and has been paying close attention to the men’s doubles, which she describes as ‘very tiring’.
She was nervous during the hit-up and twice returned to the locker room, but as the first set developed she became steady as a rock. Akhmatova also took several games to acclimatise and Millay, well supported by a group of attractive men in dressing gowns, broke the Russian’s serve at 5–5 and took the first set 7–5. If Akhmatova wanted this match, she was going to have to win it.
In the second set Akhmatova hustled better and we began to see her hand on the tiller. She served deeper, forcing Millay back and making her returns more defensive. She volleyed more often, making Millay play a more responsive game, and she dictated terms at the net. Millay played some lovely drop shots from the baseline, which delighted the dressing gowns but it wasn’t enough to save the second set.
Millay came out of the blocks well in the third and bolted to a 3–0 lead before the Russian got on the board. Looking as if the trials of Sisyphus were upon her, Akhmatova dragged herself about the court. She stemmed the bleeding by breaking Millay at 2–3 with three sizzling returns. Millay served two double-faults to lose her serve at 7–7 and the match looked to swing the Russian’s way, but Millay came back and at 10-all it was clear the broadcast would run over time. At 12-all Millay went ahead. Akhmatova broke back. At 14-all Ahkmatova broke, only to be gathered in the next game. At 17-all Akhmatova broke again.
A hush fell over the stadium. This had the whiff of destiny about it.
Akhmatova served. Millay got to it but pushed it wide. Akhmatova served. Millay hit a cross-court winner. Akhmatova served. Millay backhand lofted long. Akhmatova served. Ace. Match point. Akhmatova served, Millay good return, Akhmatova down the line, Millay cross court, Akhmatova deep to the forehand, Millay lob, Akhmatova smash. Millay got to it but couldn’t control it; the ball drifted out. The Russian was the champion.
For someone who had just endured the trials of Job, Akhmatova had a very light touch. She thanked the crowd, said Millay had played brilliantly and that this was ‘a match without a hero’. ‘We don’t know what we’re capable of until we are tested,’ she said. ‘As a general rule we are not being tested when we are being told we are being tested. We are being tested to the limit of human endurance when we are being told everything is normal. I’d like to dedicate this win to Osip Mandelstam, who is dead, and to Nadezhda, who is alive.’
The men’s finalists, fifth-seeded continental Dubliner James Joyce and the unseeded Englishman George Orwell, were given a standing ovation before the match had even started. Neither man is much accustomed to success and their attempt to acknowledge the spectators and behave like stars was endearing. They stood at the net, bowed slightly and pretended to be interested in their racquet-strings. Orwell did up his shoes three times. Joyce fiddled with his glasses as if he’d never seen them before. They were both relieved to get on the court, hit the ball and lose themselves in their work.
To get here Orwell looked the facts in the face and dealt with them. He got past Harry Arlen, Ford Madox Ford and Louis Armstrong. He beat Eddie Munch in three and outlasted the astonishing van Gogh before defeating Fats Waller and Duchamp to reach the final.
In the top half of the draw, meanwhile, Joyce had invented a new way of playing and had beaten allcomers: his friend Bartók, Kipling the old warhorse, the powerful Rachmaninov, the energetic Spockster and the Great Dali. He then conquered his own hero Chekhov and, semi-finally, in the match promoted on television as ‘the irresistible force versus the immovable object’, he threw a net over SuperTom.
Orwell first grabbed the
