Tucked away in a corner of Soldiers Field, far from the thoughts of most of the fall sports writers, a group of sweat-shirted tennis players last week finished the off-season practice which helped to shape the Crimson varsity for next spring.

Despite the short extent of the month-long fall practice session, Coach Jack Barnaby feels that this time is as important to the team as spring football used to be to the varsity eleven. The tennis mentor must not only get a line on his sophomore prospects, but he also has to teach the whole team new strokes and tacties with which to become familiar before meeting outside competition in the spring.

Now that spring football has been dropped, tennis and crew are the only varsity sports left which schedule formal practice during more than one season of the year. Despite this, tennis still classified as a minor sport by the H.A.A.

Fall Practice Starts Early

Both the freshmean and varsity squad candidates not in other sports begin playing near the wind-swept Charles in the first week after College registration. Practice was discontinued last week only after the wintry weather made the courts unfit for play.

The squad members have a vacation from tennis for the next four months, except those whom Barnaby advises to play indoors on private courts around Boston during the winter. The team begins practice again in March, playing indoors on the top floor of the I.A.B. before going outside just before spring vacation.

Barnaby has to decide in the fall what most of his spring lineup will be since the players face varsity opponents in the spring before they have much time to play off for squad positions. The team which will travel south during spring vacation to meet the year-around southern college players has been practically decided upon already by Barnaby on the basis of inter-squad play this fall.

Three of the men likely to make that trip missed the practices this fall. Captain Charlie Ufford and Alex Haegler, playing varsity soccer, and Art French, on the Crimson football team, all are included in Barnaby's plans because of their play last spring. Ufford and French particularly will start at two and three, where they played in 1952.

Rauh Still First

The rest of the team had a chance to advance on the squad ladder through test matches arranged by Barnaby. John Rauh kept his singles spot safe by defeating the number four man, Gene Mann, in three close sets. Don Bossart beat Dave-Watts to move ahead of him into the fifth position.

With the singles set, Barnaby's only worry now is in doubles, where he lost one of his top players, Bill Goodman, by graduation last June. Without Ufford and French, the coach has not been able to settle on any definite teams this fall, but he hopes to line them up quickly next year.