Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 6 March 1947, page 13


DAVIS CUP TEAM: On thc first stage of irs quest to regain the Davis Cup, now held by the United States, the Australian team is4>ookea* to leave for Wimbledon at the end of »his month. Members of the team upon whom we will pin our hopes are: (from left to right), John Bromwich, Dennis Pails,

Geoff. Brown and Colin Long.

TENNIS ';,

Wimbledon Bound

rpHE Australian Davis Cup team,

comprising J. Bromwich, D. Pails, c. Long and G. Brown, should prove an undoubted drawçard at the Wimbledon championships, begin-ning on June 23. In the past Aus-tralians have always been popular with Wimbledon crowds and invari-ably give a good account of them-selves. The English L.T.A. recog-nises the "appearance" value of leading Australian players by pay-ing a substantial sum to the L.T.A.A. for their attendance at Wimbledon.

The Australians were due to leave by ship at the end of the month but will now probably travel by air. They will compete in several tournaments prior to Wimbledon, including the Lon-don championships at Queen's Club. The French championships follow Wimbledon, but the Aus-tralians may miss that event as they must be in Canada early In August to meet their first Davis Cup en-gagement. That will be against Canada but the venue of the tie has yet to be decided.

The Australians should have no great difficulty in winning the American zone but will probably meet with strong opposition from the winner of the European zone, probably Yugoslavia or Sweden. If they overcome this obstacle they will once again face the Americans -this time on the latter's home ground-and unless the play of Kramer and his companions has deteriorated by then the Australians will need to excel themselves if they are to bring home the bacon.

N.S.W. Protest

.J^HE appointment of Mr. C. H.

Cowling as manager of the Aus-tralian Davis Cup team in prefer-ence to Mr. J. Crawford has been the subject of criticism in New South Wales, and a protest has been lodged with the L.T.A.A. by the council, of the N.S.W. associa-tion. The N.S.W. president (Mr. Bryan Puller, K.C.), considered that it was a great mistake to make an administrator manager of the team. He said that by the voting, 8-4, ap-parently only New South Wales and Queensland supported the nomina-tion of Crawford. This was a fur-ther example of the difficulty the Kew South Wales association had

in getting anything it desired from the L.T.A.A. The Australian body would regret the choice. Jack Craw-ford had rendered great service to tennis over many years, and would have been the best player-captain.

The W.A. council left the question of voting to the discretion of its delegates. Mr. Cowling is secretary of the Victorian Lawn Tennis Asso-ciation and delegate to the Austra-lian council.

Country Fixtures

NUMBER of country tourna-ments will be held during the Easter holidays. The DalwallinuBallidu and Districts Tennis Asso-ciation will hold an open tourna-ment at Pithara from April 4 to April 7. Provision has been made for 17 events, including four events for juniors and a number of handi-caps. Entries will close on Tues-day, March 25.

The first post-war championship tournament of the Northam and Dis-tricts Association will take place at the courts of the Northam club at Easter from April 4 to April 7 in-clusive. The programme comprises 12 events including championship and handicap singles, doubles and mixed doubles, also boys and girls (under 19 years) singles champion-ships. Entry forms are now avail-able at city sports depots and from club secretaries or the club secretary (Box 29, P.O., Northam). Entries will close on Saturday, March 29.

Chino's Loss

H^HE death recently in England of ~*- Kho Sin Kie marks the passing of China's leading tennis player. Khó Sin Kie came into prominence in European tennis prior to the war and one of his best performances was in defeating H. W. Austin to win the 1938 British hardcourt cham-pionship. He was a graceful type of player and was an accomplished linguist.

Kho Sin Kie was selected as a member of China's Davis Cup team in 1935 and played for his country whenever China entered the com-petition since. Last year China was eliminated by Belgium but Kho Sin Kie won both hiß singles. In the early days of his career Kho Sin Kie had a hard fight to convince his father that there was much good in the game.

Reference to Kho Sin Kie recalls to mind that about 20 years ago one of the leading juniors in Vic-toria was an Australian-born Chi-nese player named Gordon Lum.

He played for Victoria in Interstate matches and also in the Linton Gup competition. Later he went to China and subsequently he represented that country in the Davis Cup.

BOXING

Boksi in London

TOE Baksi, the American heavy-

weight, has arrived in London for his bout with the British cham-pion, Bruce Woodcock, which is scheduled to take place this month.

The wanner of this fight will be right -in line for a crack at Joe Louis's world heavyweight crown.

"Whitey" Joe Bimstein, trainer and second to Joe Baksi, who has

JOE BAKSI . . . "big and speedy."

been in the fight game for 35 years and whose memories go back to Jim Driscoll-he prepared Tunney, Baer and Braddock for their big fightsreckons that he again has a world heavyweight champion-to-be in his charge.

"This guy Baksi," says Bimstein, "is the next best heavyweight in the

world after Joe Louis. He's the/ white hope all right."

And Baksi certainly looks the part. He starts off with the advantage

of being mighty big for he stand! 6ft. lin., takes size 13 shoes and weighs 15 stone. Then he is young, aged 25 years, and has had 70 odd tough fights and ha« never been knocked out. He is the son ot Slovakian parents, his, father a former coal miner hailing from Pennsylvania.

When Baksi was asked recently about his toughest fight he replied» "All fights are tough and the toughest part of any fight is the training. That's full-time work and that's why I'm a full-time pugilist."

"I'm too lazy to do anything else,* he added with a grin.

He has no illusions about his own ability. "I'm big and I'm speedy» too," says Joe. "Bring on this Wood» cock guy."

Meanwhile Bruce Woodcock is showing great form in training and has all of Baksi's attributes-if not more. With the world crown in sight both fighters know that, if either loses this bout, chances of another opportunity for a match for the world title will dimmish considerably. On that score British fight fans are looking forward with eager antici-pation to the "Battle of the" Century And a record gate is expected.

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SWIMMING

College Champion For

Duntroon

SEVENTEEN-year-old ' Noel Tunstill,

/who was captain and swam for Aquinas College in the Public Schools' swimming sports on Saturday at

Crawley Baths, left for the Royal . Military College, Duntroon, on Mon-day night. Tunstill is to commence a four-years' course at Duntroon and prior to the swimming sports, had been selected among the Western Aus-tralian entrants to the college.

Tunstill has had an outstanding career in sport at Aquinas College having been champion swimmer of the school, a winner of an under 16 hurdles event in the inter-schcol

athletic sports, a member, of the first

football 18 and an oarsman in the crew which won the Heid of

the River last year. At the time of ' leaving Aquinas he was a lieutenant in the cadet detachment at the school.

At the inter-school swimming sports, Tunstill was second in the 100 metres open freestyle and third in the 400 metres open freestyle, earning valuable points which enabled his school to tie with Scotch College for the Swimming cup.