Sport: The King Is Dead

The game of racquets is for the well-heeled, but not for the idle. The fastest of all court games, it requires cat-quick reflexes, whiplash power, an armful of “bats” (they often break), and a four-walled, 60-by-30-ft. court (cost: $100,000 and up). The idea is to swat a tough little projectile no larger than a ping-pong ball—but wrapped and stitched like a baseball—off the court walls so that it cannot be retrieved on first bounce.* For 15 years the king of U.S. racquets players has been Robert Grant III, now 41, a Wall Street stockbroker who was born in London and learned the game at Eton. Last week at Tuxedo Park, N.Y., competing in the Tuxedo Gold Racquet tournament, an English youngster named Geoffrey W. T. Atkins, 26, ended Grant’s reign.

Like Grant, Atkins learned his racquets at his public school (Rugby). After a hitch in the Grenadier Guards, he Polished up his game at Cambridge, and last year won the English amateur title. Colonel N.S. Renny, secretary of the Tennis and Rackets Association of Great Britain, describes Atkins’ game as one of “great purity of style.” Adds Renny: “He hits the ball right at the bottom of the bounce, just as they say you ought to—like a small boy whipping a top.” In addition wiry, nonsmoking Atkins, who works for a sporting-goods firm, is always “fit as a flea.” If he has one failing, it is that “he’s inclined to be too kind to an opponent.”

Last week, leaving his kindness at home and stroking the ball with ferocity and accuracy, Atkins whipped Grant three games out of four, 15-3, 15-12, 11-15, 15-8. Loser Grant predicted a great future for the new king: “He’ll stay on top.” Added Grant, with the politesse traditional among the world’s few hundred racqueteers: “I played well, but Atkins played a much better game.”

*In this it resembles the milder games, squash tennis and squash racquets, which are played on less expensive courts with more durable racquets bats, and lighter, less murderous balls.