New Plan Needed For Tennis Titles

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30094, 30 March 1963, Page 9

New Plan Needed For Tennis Titles

r FHE bitter complaints A made at the recent meeting of delegates to the Canterbury Lawn Tennis Association about the '♦lack of support for this season’s Canterbury championships suggest that arrangements for next year should be considered now. Clubs were criticised be-

cause they did not ensure that their players entered in the B grade sections provided by the association for the first time. This criticism may be warranted, but when the national championships are not in Christchurch this is the province’s top tournament and it is championship players who are wanted mainly. Another delegate said the previous year entries had been all right, but at the last championships they had been practically nonexistent. (There were 14 in the men’s singles, seven hi toe women’s singles.) There is nothing startling about this claim, because the previous season was one in which the Canterbury championships were part of the national circuit and in those seasons, every third, a good entry in quantity and quality is assured. The two seasons in between are the ones which have to be considered; they have been a problem for a long time. There is no doubt that Canterbury players must take blame for not supporting their own tournament well enough, but the province is again lacking in players of quality.

If the tournament is to gain players of quality from elsewhere there will have to be a reassessment of. the policy of rigidly adhering to the Christmas dates, for at that stage the best players have embarked on the main circuit. Because of this Canterbury is at times even without some of its own best players. Next season is an ideal time for an experiment, and the Wellington association has given a lesson. In the 1961-62 season Wellington adopted the scheme of playing its championships over two week-ends before Christmas. The idea has proved most successful for it has been able to obtain players from outside Wellington before they have become involved in the tournaments of toe circuit. In 1961, L. A. Gerrard, C. G. Judge and G. D. Moss were invited from the south and last year Judge and Miss J. Davidson were invited. I. S. Crookenden has also taken part in both tournaments. The system could surely work the other way. Next season toe Wellington championships will be part of the tournament circuit because toe national championships will be held there, so the way is presumably open for Canterbury to adopt the idea of holding a tournament over two week-ends earlier in December. The payment of fares for Auckland players would probably be too costly, but invitations to Wellington players like R. G. Clarke, J. B. Souter, R. N. Hawkes, N. McAffer and Miss M. Johnston might be possible. This might well have been considered for toe South Island championships which will be held at Wilding Park at Easter.