Word: wimbledon
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...long ago, the U.S. Davis Cup squad-on paper, at least-looked as though it had an even chance of bringing the cup back from Australia this December. Dick Savitt, Australian and Wimbledon champion, was thelogical No.1 man in singles. Up & coming Tony Trabert, U.S. clay court champion, could play the No. 2 singles, and team with veteran Billy Talbert in the doubles. Then the paper plans began to go up in smoke. A week after Trabert was ordered to duty with the Navy, Talbert quit the squad to go back to work as a salesman for the Security Banknote...
...tournament; the biggest U.S. tennis gallery since 1946 was primed for white-hot competition. One bracket pitted Australian Frank Sedgman against Art Larsen, the flashy, unpredictable U.S. champ; the other match paired husky Dick Savitt, who had earned his No. 1 seeded position by knocking off the Australian and Wimbledon titles, against Vic Seixas, flashing the best play of his five-year career...
...ability to win, but they did create a jinx. Drobny beat him again in the quarter-finals of the French championships, a tournament that Savitt really wanted to win. He began to fret, decided he was over-tennised, and practically stopped playing for the whole month before Wimbledon...
...backbreaker, 15-13, and Savitt won it after trailing 1-5. After that it was easy (6-3, 6-2). With the added momentum that victory gave to his confidence, and showing never a jot of the center-court jitters that have wrecked many another player at Wimbledon, he breezed past McGregor again in the final...
Savitt flew home the next day. He had had five solid months of tennis campaigning, all out of the U.S. The Clay Court championships were being played that week in Chicago, and the tennis bigwigs naturally wanted Dick there: the Wimbledon champion would be a big drawing card. He flatly refused to go. He needed a rest, and he knew it. He did not play again until his Davis Cup debut against Japan. Savitt is always edgy before an important match, and, unlike most of the other players, is given to moments of introspection and brooding. Facing a test that...