THE decision of William M. Johnston, international tennis star and Davis Cup defender, to remain an amateur in spite of the dazzling offer recently made to him by C. C. Pyle, the tennis impresario, to turn professional has about it something rather fine. William T. Tilden 2d, for six consecutive years National Champion, also characteristically has refused to join the troupe of quondam amateurs turned professional with which Pyle plans to tour the United States during the coming winter. With the recent surrender of Howard Kinsey, the list of new professionals numbers six. In addition to Suzanne Lenglen, the star of stars, there are now Mary K. Browne of California, Vincent Richards of New York, and Harvey Snodgrass and Walter Westbrook of Los Angeles.

The decision of “Little Bill” Johnston, as he is affectionately known to his friends, is typical of the man who all along has so pre-eminently played the game for the love of it.

“In the course of an interview here,” says our Pacific coast correspondent, writing from San Francisco, “Johnston made his position perfectly clear. ‘I firmly believe,’ he said, ‘that professional tennis is a problem that each individual has to decide for himself. In turning this offer down I have gone against the advice of most of my friends. Some day I may regret this, but I hardly think so. To me my present position in tennis is all that I can ask, and I doubt very much if any offer in the future will change my mind.’”

Johnston began to play tennis in 1903, when he was nine years old. At fifteen he won the Golden Gate Park Championship in San Francisco, and in 1913 he became one of the first ten American players, placing fourth in the championship matches. Since then he has been an international tennis figure and has been placed first or second in America every year except for the two years he was in the war. Johnston and Tilden won the Davis Cup in Australia in 1920, and since then have been among its successful defenders.

Source: The Outlook, Oct 20, 1926