Ernie Koslan, the New York University junior, is one of the best ###ing tennis stars of the younger element. The Jewish lad from the Bronx has caused so many upsets in the past year and has revealed so much promise that, despite the fact he is ### yet unranked, he is well on his way to the tennis heights.
In a highly spectacular match Ernie turned pack William Thomp#on Saturday and moved into the #emi-final round of the metropoltan indoor tennis championship at the 102nd Regiment Armory. His determined fight made him a colorful figure as he gained another #phill triumpn. He played with an earnestness and determination that showed how seriously he #rized the outcome. Pressing Thompson, seeded third, for every point of the final set, Koslan #ltimately swept ahead by taking the set and match after the score was tied at three-all to account for another tourney upset.
CAME NEAR BEATING {SPAN}#EAN{/SPAN} BOROTRA
Koslan once proved a difficult barrier to the great Jean Borotra at the national indoor tennis championships.
It was the last match of the evening in the men’s singles championship tennis tournament between the Bounding Basque and the young N. Y. U. student, that provided the gallery with its thrills. Borotra, one of the leading players of the world for he last decade and four times a winner of the national indoor title, dropped the second set of the match to Koslan. a player without national ranking and at the time without notable victories to his credit.
The Basque eventually won, 8-6, 3-6, 6-3, and it was almost unbelievable that he would lose. yet his play was so ragged and his errors so flagrant there were times when one wondered how he was going to win.
Most of the spectators had already left when these two players stepped on the boards. They took #t for granted that the Davis Cup veteran would join Frank Shields, Gregory Mangin, Lester Stoefen, Wood and Lott in the third round without the semblance of a struggle.
Those who remained, with the expectation of seeing the volatile Basque make short s##ift of his opponent, saw instead young Koslan play a grade of tennis that no one suspected he was capable of even approaching.
REVEALED TENNIS PROMISE THAT DAY
The gallery at the Armory last March {SPAN}##{/SPAN} was this slender, black-haired youngster, confident almost to the point or cockiness and armed with a whiplash forehand and a stinging. effectively-placed service, cause the French idol such genuine disquietude that the tournament committee was shaking its collective head in alarm.
So dangerous indeed was the challenge that this Jewish youngster offered to one of the world’s greatest players that the committee had good cause to visualize the unhappy prospect of losing its greatest drawing card.
Not until the players had been on the court for an hour and a half and Borotra had been desperately hard put to get back his recalcitrant stokes under control was Koslan turned back
ONE OF LEADING JEWISH NET STARS IN COUNTRY
Koslan, in the near future, will be this country’s foremost Jewish tennis ace. We predict that this youngster will be ranked near the top in a few seasons, provided he keeps up the good tennis form he is displaying these days
Despite the fact that he is only twenty years old. Koslan has been playing tennis since he was a kid camper at Balfour Lake some ten years ago. However, he has been playing tournament tennis for the last four seasons. Also, he has been the youngest player for the past three years in the national indoor tennis tournaments to reach the rounds of sixteen twice and thirty-two once.
The names of Geller, Hecht, Kantrowitz, Morgenstern, Feibleman and the Seligsons, have been familiar to tennis followers during the past seasons but the name of Koslan is rapidly becoming known throughout the country.
AN ACTIVE MACCABI MEMBER
Ernie works for a realty company and it is because of the firm’s leniency that he has been able to devote so much time to tennis—practice and tournaments. At the same time he is one of the stars on the N. Y. U. tennis team. What is more, he has received one of the two honorary scholarships offered by his fraternity, Tau Epsilon Phi. Charlie Siegel, diminutive Violet quarterback, was the other recipient of this scholarship.
Like so many other great Jewish athletes throughout the country, Ernie Koslan has aligned himself with the Maccabi movement. He is an active member of the sports committee that meets every week to consider tennis prospects for the American Maccabi team to be sent to Palestine in April. As far as prospects for the team go, Ernie is one of the best choices for the net squad that we would make.
JANICE LIFSON WINS DIVING TITLE
At the A. A. U. senior metropolitan swimming and diving championships, the naiads of the Women’s Swimming Association, fresh from aquatic triumphs at Miami, splashed through for three individual titles.
The most interesting competition was witnessed in the ten-foot fancy diving event, with three members of the association dividing honors among them. Miss Janice Lifson, the husky Jewish youngster, won with a total of 119.46 points in the contest which incorporated three new Olympic rules in the execution of the compulsory dives.
Janice built up a substantial lead over Betty Harrison and Cornelia Gillissen in the five required dives and then clinched the event with and excellent one-and-a-half somersault with full twist in the optional division.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
