Hide Article Text (OCR)
By ELIZABETH ASHTONCougar StaffDon’t watch World Team Tennis on television. That is, unless Bill Cosby turns you on.Cosby helped moderate the match between Houston’s E-Z Riders and L.A.’s Strings, nationally televised Monday night from the Coliseum. He also showed last Thursday when Billie Jean King’s Philadelphia Freedoms got nipped 23 to 20.Cosby is big in WTT. He owns apiece of the Freedoms and isplainly out there protecting his investment, lobbing it up for WTT.Monday night, he kept a low key patter going in the dead places between sets, interviewing the String’s John Alexander and Houston’s Karen Karantzcke.“How’s the audience in L A.?’’ Cosby said, coming up with a really original question.“It’s OK,’’ Alexander said, w ith less than enthusiasm. “But an antagonistic crowd can really upset a visiting team, and it just doesn’t do to be nasty to the girls.” Wait a minute, Alexander. LastThursday, Billie Jean King turnedto the stomping, booing crowd to yell out that Big Daddy of expletives. What about being nasty to the fans?But, shoot, WTT is an “anything goes’’ game, right?Karantzcke was guarded in her response to another Cosby original about the crowd.“I’m a bit conservative,’’ she said in beautifully-clippedAustralian. “It’s rough with an opposition audience.’’On national TV you get Cosby, but not all the flavor that makes WTT a strange hybrid, crossing the class of the courtly Australians with the moxie of abaseball fan.You gotta see it live—live at the Coliseum,—with John Newcombe big as life wiping sweat from his forehead as the guy from Shakey’s Pizza revs up his banjo.WTT seems to go for that hokey music. If it’s not the banjo filling time between games, it’s an organ pumping out with everybody’s sentimental old favorite, “Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown,’’ driving the crowd to excesses of enthusiasm.The crowd could have been ripping up the seats Monday night when the E-Z Riders took the L.A. Strings 29-21, but the TV set was cool, showing only courtside players moving with the style of a game weaned at Wimbleton.TV missed seeing Newcombe and company throwing their orange Stetson’s in the air, missed the stands echoing to the rhythmic stomping of the fans as Houston busted out two nine-point tiebreakers (in men's singles and women’s doubles), missed the whole scene that makes WTT the newest circus in town.The E-Z Riders home stand schedule puts them on the court at the Coliseum two more times this week. Tonight they meet the Cleveland Nets with stars Cliff Richey and Nancy Richey Gunter. Saturday, it’s the Denver Raquets with Tony Roche and Francoise Durr. Both games volley in at 7:30p.m.■D LAWaiMCBILLIE JEAN KING dives for a low baseline shot at arecent WTT match with the Houston E-Z Riders. King is known as one of the games fiercest competetors, and is player-coach for the Philadelphia Freedoms.
Newspaper Details
Houston Summer Cougar
Houston, Texas, US
Thu, Jun 13, 1974
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 09 Feb 2022
Other Publications Near Houston, Texas
Houston Summer Cougar
Houston Cougar
Houston Daily Cougar
Houston Post
Daily Court Review
