The Game Can Take More Players—9 To 90

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30559, 30 September 1964, Page 12

The Game Can Take More Players—9 To 90

JUST more than 5500 ten* u nis players belong to clubs affiliated to the Canterbury Lawn Tennis Association—a figure exceeded in New Zealand only by Auckland (8041) —and . they make a considerable contribution to the Dominion’s affiliated membership of 36,745. But the Canterbury figure has dropped from a peak of 6271 in 1960. The. province’s clubs have the facilities to cope with many more who may be interested

in one of the finest of all games. For this reason the association is holding a Tennis Week during which it hopes to gain members among both children and adults. Tennis has no boundaries of age. That it might provide a life-time of recreation has been shown by King Gustav V of Sweden, who played in tournaments until he was 88 in spite of the advice of his doctors who said it would shorten his life. He died at 92. Closer to home is the remarkable example of the Aucklander A. S. Burns, who at 43, is still one of New Zealand’s first 10 men and

who won his first national title, the mixed doubles, at Wilding Park in 1956 at the age of 35. At the other end of the scale is the diminutive child who can wield a racket when it is still almost bigger than he is. On the 1964 returns Canterbury had 26 affiliated clubs in Christchurch with a membership of 1882 seniors and 1940 Juniors. The six

New Zealand champion, G. F. Ollivier, seven times national titleholder, a record which still stands, C. Angas, A. D. Brown, Miss M. Speirs, Miss J. Mac Gibbon, Miss J. Davidson and many others. Welding the clubs together is the Canterbury Lawn Tennis Association to which they send their representatives, and the ramifications of its work have few limits. In its ideal headquarters at Wilding Park it provides for inter-club competitions,

tournaments, representative matches, visits by overseas players and those from other parts of New Zealand. It has a junior association which provides similar opportunities for children. All of them can rely on getting able coaching. There are three professional coaches in the province—the association’s official coach, P. Hubrich, A. D. Brown, former national champion and Davis Cup player,. and T. Withers, a former Canterbury representative who has coached in Dunedin.