MISS HELEN WILLS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 140, 14 June 1924, Page 19

MISS HELEN WILLS

AMERICAN LAWN TENNIS

CHAMPION.

Miss Helen Wills, the youthful Californian star, who is now American lawn tennis champion, is sparing no pains to avoid the pitfalls into which pastAmerican visitors have fallen, says^the London correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." It is a well-known phenomenon of women's play that, whether they be Americans visiting Europe or, as iast year, Englishwomen going to the States, they have invariably failed to show their best form on a first trip, and oven on later visits have seemed to take longer to acclimatise themselves than do men players. Becognising tho need for time in which to adapt herself to English turf, English balls, as well as the change in environment, Miss Wills sailed from New York on the Berengaria on 14th May in order to have plenty of practice before Wimbledon. It is in her favour that she proved more than capable of adapting herself to the conditions. in the Eastern States, a change from her native California almost as great as this visit to England. All the winter she has been practising against the best men plavcrs neither asking nor giving quarter iii the hardest rallies, so that competent judges consider her to have improved considerably even on her last yssw'si sonsßtisecvl wraj.