The Tennis Tournament.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19198, 3 January 1928, Page 10

The Tennis Tournament.

There was a time in New Zealand when summer was regarded merely as a breathing space between football seasons, and summer sports were regarded as polite amusements not to be taken too seriously. The tor.r of the 1905 All Blacks proclaimed us to the world —and we were proud of it —as a country that could produce a Rugby team equal to any in the world, and in our efforts to live up to that reputation, cricket and tennis had for some years to take a second place. Last year Lowry and his men showed that it might not be long before New Zealand met England on equal terms at cricket, but our tennis, judged by the standard of play at the tournament just concluded in Christchureh, will have to show a great deal of improvement before it becomes known overseas. The entries included, with perhaps three exceptions, all the firstclass players in the country, yet in the finals of the men's events the play was, to say the least, disappointing. Only very rarely did it rise above the standard of good club tennis, and speed and physical fitness, the great essentials of the modern game, were lacking. There were two compensating factors: a continuance of the steady improvement in the play of the ladies, which has been going on for some years now, and the number of promising youngsters. No one can despair of Neiv Zealand tennis while there are players with such possibilities as Malfroy, Knott, Sturt, and Angas, but it is a question at present whether they will get enough practice with their equals and betters to bring out the best in them. The New Zealand tournament is the only occasion in the year when New Zealand's tennis talent is brought together, and then so many matches must be crowded into so short a time that players cannot derive the benefit from it that they should. A very noticeable feature of this year's tournament in Christchureh was the number of players who failed in the final stages because they could not stand up to the physical strain, and there was even the remarkable spectacle of a pair defaulting in a final. To some extent the players themselves may be to blame for lack of proper preparation, but in any case it is too much to expect them to last two five set matches in a day. Indeed, where the player is still in his teens, considerable harm may be done. The remedy seems to be fewer matches, and this can be achieved either by players confining themselves to fewer events or by some method of combing the entries.