Sport: Another Budge?

> At Indianapolis, U. S. Champion Bobby Riggs defeated California’s up-&-coming Welby Van Horn, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2, in the final of the 53rd annual Western tennis tournament.

> At Spring Lake, N. J., canny Frankie Parker, U. S. No. 2, who dedicated this year’s forehand to his wife, won the Spring Lake Invitation tournament for the seventh year in a row—drubbing Florida’s Gardnar Mulloy, 6-1, 6-3, 6-4.

> At Forest Hills, Intercollegiate Champion Don McNeill, U. S. No. 3, defeated Florida’s Frank Guernsey, 6-1, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, in the final of the New York State clay-court championship.

> At North Conway, N. H., up-&-coming Frank Kovacs of Oakland, Calif, trounced Chicago’s 19-year-old Seymour Greenberg, public parks champion, 6-4, 6-1, 8-6, to win the second annual Eastern Slope Gold Racquet tournament.

In years gone by, early July tournaments such as these caused only a raised eyebrow among U. S. tennis fans. Last week, however, with America’s top-notch amateurs competing at home instead of at Wimbledon, the tennis world watched with interest. Most eyes were on North Conway. For the Gold Racquet tournament—inaugurated last year by Manhattan Banker Harvey D. Gibson to publicize his native village as a summer as well as a winter resort—has already become an important event on the U. S. tennis calendar. On display at North Conway was 20-year-old Frank Kovacs.

Frank Kovacs (6 ft. 3 in his tennis socks) is the son of an immigrant Hungarian upholsterer, lives in Oakland on the same street as Don Budge. He got early pointers from Don’s brother, Lloyd; later became a protégé of George Hudson, coach at the famed Berkeley Tennis Club. Two years ago Hudson’s boy attracted the attention of the U. S. Davis Cup Committee. His thunderbolt service, devastating backhand and deadly overhead game—fully as potent as the play Don Budge displayed on his first trip East—made him look like a successor to Budge.

But young Kovacs, making his Eastern debut under the protective wing of Coach Hudson, promptly got into a fuss with the tennis brass hats (for walking out of a tournament), was dropped from the Davis Cup squad. In mid-season he severed relations with his coach, reportedly on advice of the U. S. Lawn Tennis Association. Upset by the ensuing publicity when Hudson threatened to sue the U. S. L. T. A. for alienation of affections, Kovacs was no great shakes in his first tour of the big-time circuit. Last summer, bothered by a tennis elbow, he did not compete in the important Eastern tournaments, but in the late-season Pacific Coast championship he outplayed Australia’s top-ranking Adrian Quist and Yugoslavia’s top-ranking Franjo Puncec before bowing to Bobby Riggs in the final.

This summer, profiting by last winter’s invitation tour of the Orient, Kovacs is belatedly living up to the promise he showed two years ago. Last month he whipped Frankie Parker in straight sets in the Missouri Valley championship. Last fortnight, in Long Island’s Nassau Bowl tournament, he trounced Gil Hunt, Joe Hunt and Elwood Cooke, three of America’s top-rungers.

Those who saw Kovacs at North Conway last week were impressed with his happy-go-lucky antics as well as his lightning backhand. To California galleries, Kovacs is known as the Max Baer of tennis. Once, when an airplane zoomed overhead during a critical match, he stopped play, shouldered his racket, pretended to machine-gun the plane. Another time, when it looked as though he was on the short end of a love set, he knelt down on the court, salaamed and chanted “Allah” a dozen times, then proceeded to win the set. During the San Francisco city championship a few years ago, Kovacs was about to serve for match point. He threw three balls into the air at once, hit the middle one for an ace.