‘What’s the man talking about?’ said Fields. ‘When I’m preparing to serve, everything is moving: Willie, the ball, the net, the crowd, the court and the suburb. The wonder is that I can serve at all. Did I ever tell you about the time I fell out of an aircraft during a lapse in concentration? Whose deal is it?’
In the women’s draw a somewhat imperious Sybil Thorndike was tied up in knots by Austrian tactician Melanie Klein, and the profligate Nancy Astor was toppled by Edna St Vincent Millay, who was in great touch despite her habit of burning the candle at both ends. ‘I had sex before the match,’ she confided, ‘so I’m pretty tired. Fortunately it didn’t affect my performance and most of the men played well today too.’
Polish dark-horse Rosa Luxemburg created the sensation of the day by ousting lanky German number 1 Leni Riefenstahl. Her entire national hierarchy turned out to see Riefenstahl, who was in terrific form. She looked great, her court coverage was excellent and she accepted flowers from the German administration after winning the first set 6–2. Luxemburg waited for her to put the flowers down and then took her apart. She was virtually camped at the net for the second set and by the third she was in control.
As the relationship between the sun and the yard-arm was reflected in a more relaxed atmosphere, the New York Englishman Plum Wodehouse, equipped with long trousers and plimsolls, prevailed over the big-serving Russian Aleksandr Scriabin, by simply getting the ball back. ‘Isn’t that the general idea?’ asked Wodehouse. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me if I’ve missed the point.’
‘What was I supposed to do?’ said Scriabin. ‘I hit the ball at a hundred kilometres an hour and it drifted back at twenty-five. Doesn’t do that in practice.’
‘It’s very nearly a nine iron from behind the baseline,’ said Wodehouse, ‘with just the slightest suggestion of fade.’
And there was plenty of other action. Fermi was slow to start against his talented countryman Arturo Toscanini but once he got his serve working all Toscanini could do was point her up into the wind and radio for help.
Fermi requested a ruling about whether ‘on’ the line was ‘in’, in the same sense that ‘on the line’ was ‘in the line’.
‘If you have a ball, for instance,’ he said, ‘which is clearly out, and which marks the ground outside the line, but which brings up dust, having struck the outer extremity of the line with its inner extremity, can it not be said that dust is the criterion, rather than the inness or the outness? I think we should be clear about these things.’
In the highlight of the evening session James Joyce, the Irishman who spends so much time in France he’s practically a local, won an epic struggle against Hungarian Davis Cup captain Béla Bartók. Joyce lost concentration when he was cautioned in the third set for foul language. After a cross-court winner was called out during a tie-break he swore solidly for twenty minutes without once repeating himself. His imagery was drawn from a great many sources and in particular the religious beliefs of the Gibraltan umpire were subjected to fierce ridicule. Many patrons walked out as the language became more offensive, although those who left were quickly replaced by others who made notes and met afterwards to develop a closer reading.
Sitting in the players’ box, unpredictable Czech doubles specialist Tristan Tzara said afterwards he’d never heard anything like it. ‘I shared a house with Jimmy at one stage and he’s a great guy, but you’ve really got to get out of the way when he gets dirty. I’ve heard him talking to his wife too and that is completely disgusting.’
Bartók said he had played Joyce before. Joyce agreed but made the useful point that he had never played Bartók.
Day 3
Proust v. Synge • Bakst v. Bierce • Brecht v. Koestler • de Beauvoir v. Garden • Nijinsky v. Lubitsch • Chaliapin v. Jung • Carmichael v. Lorca
The French got away to a much healthier start this morning with a gritty win to Marcel Proust over the Irishman John Synge. The crowd went nuts and there is no doubt the French show is now on the road. This was a danger match for Proust and is an excellent result. How much it took out of him remains to be seen. He’s in a tough section of the draw and he won’t want too many affairs that go to 11–9 in the fifth.
Russian pin-up boy Leon Bakst was tipped out of the competition by the experienced American eccentric Ambrose Bierce, who took to him right from the start. ‘I thought I’d better get on with it,’ he said. ‘He hits the ball well but there are plenty of dead marksmen on a battlefield.’
Furious at the result, Bakst refused to attend the press conference and it was left to Bierce to explain what might have gone wrong. ‘I naturally assume if a man is said to have the best forehand in the game, he must have a weak forehand. He’s used to people tiptoeing around his forehand as if it’s possessed of magical powers. The hell it is. Let’s slam a few in there.’
In the first set Bierce served exclusively to the Bakst forehand and played all his lobs and drop shots into the forehand court. The Russian watched his forehand fall apart.
‘It didn’t fall apart,’ said Bierce. ‘He didn’t have one.’
‘He has one against anyone else,’ opined Norman Mailer.
‘And was he playing anyone else, hugebrain?’ said Bierce, who goes through to meet the colourful customs officer Rousseau in a second-round match-up commentators are already describing as ‘Beauty and the Beast’.
Much-touted Berliner Bertolt Brecht went out to Hungarian Arthur Koestler. Near the end of the fourth set Brecht tore
