LAWN TENNIS

Dunstan Times, Issue 3513, 16 March 1931, Page 3

LAWN TENNIS

In the annual report of the English Lawn Tennis Association it is recorded that the share of profits from the Wimbledon meeting was £8,909, against £8,007 in the previous season. The receipts from international matches amounted to £862, and expenditure £2,300. The Davis Cup receipts were £490, and the Wightman Cup £ll3. It is proposed that the British delegates shall move for an alteration in the rules of the International Federation, strengthening rule 28, to make it illegal for a game to be suspended, delayed, or interfered with to enable players to receive instruction or advice —the umpire to be sole judge.

PROPOSED VISIT OF JAPANESE TEAM.

Following the failure of negotiations for a South African team, the Management Committee of the New Zealand Association has written to the Lawn Tennis Association of Japan asking for a tour of the dominion, presumably next season, by a team of representative Japanese players. If suitable financial arrangements can be made (says "Service," in the Christchurch 'Press') there seems little doubt that such a tour would be successful. Not only does the visit of an Oriental team always excite interest (those of the Chinese Soccer team and the Indian hockey team may be recalled), but some of the Japanese players available are in the first flight of the world. Takeichi Harada, T. Abe, and Y. Ohta are three who have been playing in Davis Cup tennis for several years, and if any two of them should be included in the visiting team excellent tennis would be assured. Harada has represented his country in almost every Davis Cup match since 1924, having defeated W. M. Johnston (1926), R. Lacoste, and H. Cochet (1926), and H. Docket (1929). He was ranked seventh in the "world's first ten " of 1926. Ohta has also represented Japan consistently in Davis Cup matches, having to his credit a defeat of J. Van R.yn in 1929. In 1928 and 1929 he won many of the open English tournaments. The value of such overseas tours to tbe sport in the dominion has been emphasised over and over again. In New Zealand the game suffers inevitably from its isolation from the tennis-play-ing centres of the world, so that overseas visits are all the more necessary to create and maintain standards of play. Apart from that, however, they stimulate interest in the sport among the public and among tennis players themselves. While the suggested Japanese tour may be warmly commended, the New Zealand Association should not lose sight of the possibility of attracting to the dominion W. T. Tilden and the other professionals who accompany him on his tour of Australia. A cable from Tokio states that the Japan Lawn Tennis Association has again challenged in the European zone of the Davis Cup contest, and that its team would consist of Takeichi, Harada, Hyotaro Sato, and Jiro Sato. Jiro Sato is a new member, from Waseda University. He won the singles championship of Japan last November, it is stated.