Noted Tennis Player At Coaching School

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31770, 29 August 1968, Page 2

Noted Tennis Player At Coaching School

A woman tennis player who fought a semi-final with Maureen Connolly on the centre court at Wimbledon in 1952, is at Wilding Park this week, passing to South Island girls some of the experience she gained from matches such as that one.

Mrs Long, who was one of the world’s leading players in the mid-19505, is coaching a group of 13 at the 1968 Rothmans school conducted by the Can* terbury Junior Lawn Tennis Association.

Fit, alert, and blunt but pleasant, Mrs Long has her team working hard—as she had to work herself to gain her exalted position. In a competitive career of more than 20 years she had success in championships at home and overseas.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMPION She won the Australian women’s singles in 1952 and 1956, and between 1936 and 1956 she won the women’s doubles 11 times and the mixed double*-three times. Her first trip overseas was as a very young member of the Australian women’s team in 1938, but war interrupted such expeditions and Mrs Long did not become a regu-

lar tourist until 1949. From then until 1958 she toured the world circuit with Australian teams or on her own and she virtually pioneered the private tour by Australian women. She matched skills with such notable players as Doris Hart and Louise Brough and won titles in many countries, especially in doubles and mixed doubles, in which her partners included the Argentinian, Enrique Morea, and the Chilean, Luis Ayala. Mrs Long has a playing record that any pupil might wish to emulate, and since 1960, when she turned professional, she has developed quiet but insistent teaching methods which show pupils how to go about emulating her. WEEK-END CLINICS

In Sydney she visits schools during the week, conducts clinics at week-ends and occasionally goes to country districts. In 1966 she coached New Zealand’s leading girls in Wanganui and Wellington; last year she took them again in Christchurch; she was attached to the Wilson Cup team when it played in Australia last January; and now she is back in Christchurch. She has become a close associate of New Zealand tennis and has firm ideas on what it should do. COMPETITIVE PLAY

New Zealand's leading girls must go to Australia as often as possible, she says; the competitive play is essential. Australians of her era had togo to Europe for this, but now for young New Zealanders Australia is only two hours away. However, Mrs Long feels that the New Zealand girls are restricted by being forced to stay at home for tournaments at the same time as the best ones in Australia are being played. A rearranged New Zealand programme would give them better chances, she says. Mrs Long praised the

organisation of this week’s coaching school, similar to those in New South Wales, to which a number of towns send their most promising players.

At the same time she advocated continuity. On her previous visits she has coached the same leading girls and has been able to develop their stroking, whereas this time she has only two of those girls, Misses R. Legge and R. Dillon, of Canterbury Mrs Long said she knew there had been obstacles to gathering this group again, but the continuity was always to be aimed for. She would also like to see more indoor courts in New Zealand—such as those at Wanganui—so that leading girls can play in the winter. “All those kids have blisters on their hands this week because they have not been able to keep up their play,” she said. “Telling them” is not enough; the New Zealand circuit is not enough; competitive play, winter and summer, is Mrs Long’s recipe for New Zealand’s top girls to improve their play.