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Eight U. S. Players Win Wimble Match Mulloy Avoids Near Upset With Fourth Set Rally to Provide Tournament Thrill By JOHN B. McDERMOTT United Press Sports Writer WIMBLEDON, England, June 25. — Gardnar Mulloy, 36-year-old U. S. Davis Cup veteran, rallied from the brink of defeat to beat Philippe Washer of Belgium today and joined seven fellow-Americans and the tournament favorites, Frank Sedg-man and Jaroslav Drobny, in the second round of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Only five points from defeat in the fourth set, methodical Mulloy pulled himself together and swept nine of the last 10 games to beat Washer, 13-15, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-1, in a marathon two-hour struggle on the famed center court. Aside from Mulloys near-upset, it was a formful opening day as all 10 seeded players — five of whom are Yanks — advanced to the second round under a blazing sun. A sellout crowd numbering more than 20,000 packed the sprawling All-England Club to watch the matches. Of the eight victorious Americans, only Mulloy and U. S. national singles champion Art Larsen of San Leandro, Calif., were carried beyond three sets. Larsen, seeded third in the tournament, had a momentary scare as he whipped Mervyn Rose, 21 -year-old Australian Davis Cupper, 6-1, 6-2, 0-6, 6-1. The other triumphant Yanks were defending champion Budge Patty of Los Angeles, who is seeded fourth: fifth-seeded Herm Flam, of Beverly Hills, Calif.; sixth -seeded Dick Savitt, of Orange, N. J., and four unseeded entries, 17-year-old Hamilton Richardson of Baton Rogue, La., the U. S. junior champion; Straight Clark, of Pasadena, Calif., and Gene Garrett, of San Diego, Calif., a student at the Sorbonne in Paris. Trio Eliminated Three American lesser-lights were eliminated — Hal Burrows, of Charlottesville, Va.; John Morison, of Syracuse, N. Y., who now makes his home in England, and 20-year-old Robert Sibert, of Los Angeles, a Stanford University star, who lost to Clark, 6-0, 6-0, 6-2. Of the two leading non-American threats in the tournament, top-seeded Sedgman, of Australia, paced himself as he pleased in beating Raymundo Deyro, of the Philippines, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, but second-ranked Drobny, of Egypt, was given a terrific battle by 42-year-old Baron Gottfried Von Cramm, of Germany, playing in the All-England tournament for the first time since 1939, 9-7, 6-4, 6-4. Although the left-handed Drobny, a political exile from Czechoslovakia, was rarely in better form, he had to call on every shot at his command to whip Von Cramm, a three-time finalist at Wimbledon, in the best-played match of the day. Patty, who had the honor of opening the tournament on the center court, was pressed only in the final set as he beat David Lurie, a young South African physicist, 6-1, 6-1, 6-4. Flam turned in one of the better American exhibitions as he easily whipped Naresh Kumar, Indian Davis Cupper, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. Savitt breezed past Nigel Cockburn, of South Africa, 6-2, 6-2, 6-2; Richardson topped A. E. Denhart, of Holland, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2, and Garrett eliminated Marcello Del Bello, Italian Davis Cupper, 6-4, 6-0, 7-5. Of the defeated Americans, Burrows lost to Geoffrey Paish, a member of Englands Davis Cup team, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2, and Morison was beaten by D. H. Shaw, of England, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1. Seventh-seeded *Ken McGregor, of Australia, eighth-seeded Eric Sturgess, of South Africa, and tenth-seeded Lennart Bergelin, of Sweden, advanced without trouble. McGregor beat Narendra Nath, of India, 8-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2; Sturgess whipped Roland Carter, of England, 6-1, 6-3, and Bergelin downed Tony Starte, of England, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0.
