Bouquets and brickbats from tennis captain

Press, 1 April 1980, Page 32

Bouquets and brickbats from tennis captain

By

JOHN BROOKS

One of Canterbury’s top tennis players is critical of some aspects of senior inter-club play—but he affirms that there is no other facility in New Zealand to compare with Wilding Park.

Ralph Webster, the big United and Canterbury representative who won the men’s' section of the BNZ Grand Prix competition this summer; was typically forthright when asked to sum up the season. The format of the senior men’s inter-club. competition had caused him distress, even before Elmwood relieved United of the title by winning the grand final. United compiled a better record than its rivals over the entire season, but Elmwood triumphed in the winner-take-all final, for which earlier points were discarded. Consequently, Webster hopes that the management committee of the Canterbury Lawn Tennis Association will take steps during the winter to clean up the anomaly. “There have been whispers about a change, but I hope it will be more substantial than that,” he said yesterday. The playing surfaces were

not wholly satisfactory, and seniors had a hard time of it operating from baselines which disappeared -in the dust.

.“The grass didn’t take at all,” said Webster, referring to the last sowing. “And the

season didn’t help — it was very dry and we played on every Saturday bar one. So even though the courts were watered they came in for heavy use. The area round the baselines was like a dust bowl, particularly in the back row of courts. The front row was good, but that was reserved mainly for Davis Cup practices.” Which brought Webster on to another bone of contention — the placing of the senior inter-club games. Invariably, they were on the back row and the left-hand side of the middle row of courts — the area referred to as the “tramways,” because spectators and players use it as a thoroughfare. “Two key matches this season — the Elmwood v. Beckenham women’s contest and the United-Avonside men’s match — were played right in the middle of the tramways. It was most disconcerting for the players, having almost constant movement around them.

; “The important inter-club . matches should be featured i on prominent courts with : easy' accessibility for specta- ’ tors,” Webster reasoned. ' “People won’t go traipsing over to the back row to i watch matches. Anyway, : seating there is limited.” Webster urged a return to ’ the front row of courts for senior matches, and said he ’ would be pleased when com- • petition games were held again on the centre court. Its sparing use this season was described by him as a I waste of a good facility. But the United senior captain’s criticisms of the constructive kind, as he has great affection for Wilding Park. “You have only to play elsewhere in the country to make you appreciate its worth,” he said. “Undoubtedly, we have got the best tennis facility in New Zealand. And the organisation in Canterbury leaves everyone else for dead.”