Now Tennis Goes Mod

Some players wore tattersall plaid shorts, but most were, fortunately, unable to get into them, since they had been fitted on a male model with skinnier thighs. Accordingly, the players had to troop to Dixon's hotel suite, where the shorts could be refitted. It was a scene of maximum confusion. A tailor had been flown in from Chicago in hopes that alterations could be made in time for opening night. As Dixon, still haggard after the time change, worked over last-minute details with associates, the players met with the fashion color coordinator. Mrs. Dixon pondered Newcombe's color chart. "I'm thinking about the russet," she said. "How about red socks?"

"Ummm," said Newcombe.

"Rick," Dixon called across the room to a Sears man. "You know, don't you, that they bumped our backstops off the plane in Baltimore because a special U.S. Mint shipment had to go through. Does Sears have anything we can use?"

"Volleyball nets?" Rick asked, trying.

"Go into the bathroom and put these on," the color man said to Roger Taylor, handing him a snappy off-gold pair of pants.

"The ball gets fluffy after a bit," Tony Roche explained to a writer. "I think it gets the court fibers in it."

"No, the nets won't be strong enough," Dixon said. "And someone's liable to fall on the ice."

"How about the national anthem?" another man asked Dixon.

"We can introduce them in pairs—the Americans, the Aussies, the British Empire team, the Europeans."

"Squat down in them, Roger," the color man said. "See how tight they are."