LAWN TENNIS

Evening Star, Issue 20973, 11 December 1931, Page 5

LAWN TENNIS

[By Rucokdwr.] .TOURNAMENTS. December 25, 20, and 28.—Southlandchampionship and handicap tournament, at Invercargill. December 25, 20, and 28.—>.orth Otago championships and handicaps, at Oamaru. * , December 26, 28, 29, 30, and 31. Auckland championship, at Auckland. December 26, 28, and 29.—Canterbury championships and handicaps, at Wilding Park, Christchurch. January 1,2, -and 4.—Handicap and open tournament, at Logan Park, Dunedin. __ January 1,2, 4, and s.—Wanganui championships and handicaps, at Wanganui. January 1,2, 4, and s.—South Island championships and handicaps, at Timaru. . January 5,6, 7, and B.—Jsovth Island championships and handicaps, at Palmerston North. January 21, 22, 23, add 25.—Wellington championships and handicaps, at Wellington. January 52, 26 ; 27, 28, 29,' and 30. N.Z. championships, at Auckland. Easter Dates. —Tournaments at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch,' and Dunedin.

Players are reminded that entries for the open championship and handicap tournament to be played at Logan Park at New Year close with Mr E. S. Wilson next _ Friday. Most of_ the leading players in Dunedin have signified their intention to play in this tournament, and it only requires the support of the B and C grade players to make it a complete success. As a special inducement to players . to enter for all events it was decided at a meeting of the association this week to reduce the entrance fee for a competitor who enters for all events to 21s, this amount to entry fee for lady partner in both mixed doubles. Mr Wilson, secretary of the association, has supplies of entry forms for the. following tournaments:—North Otago, entries close December ‘l7; Canterbury, entries close December 11; Wanganui, entries close December 23; North Island championships, entries close December 31; Poverty Bay and East Coast tournament, at Gisborne, entries close. December ,14. Last week mention was made of the fact that the result of the North-east Valley-East Taieri had not been published. The writer now finds that the result of this match was published in Tuesday’s ‘ Star ’ of November 17. While admitting that the. publishing of the result dale was betteiv than not publishing it at all, “ Recorder ’’ would like to impress on captains of winning teams the necessity of publishing result in Monday’s papers. la the Otago-Universify match the Otago men proved much too strong for their, opponents, winning their four singles and both doubles. The University ladies helped to even matters by winning, two singles and both doubles, and' were largely responsible for the winning of three of the combined doubles. Miss Culver gave a good exhibition to defeat Miss Cook, 9-9, as did Miss Vallis to gain the victory over Miss Livingstone. Both Orgias and Miss Collier lost their singles,' but in the combined doubles/against their singles opponents ' they (gained a, good win, 9-6. The missing of easy shots and lack of combination of the Otago pair were very noticeable in this match. lloslyn gained a somewhat easy victory over St. _ Kilda by 12 matches to 4. The surprise of the match was the defeat of M'Dougall by Pollock. The St. Kilda man was playing good, hard, accurate tennis, and on the day proved himself to be the better player. Miss Pattison played one of her best games this season to defeat Miss Barton, 9-3, as did Miss Harr away, of St. Kilda, to gain the decision over Miss Bagley, 9-6. Botn iMss Bagley and Miss Harraway played good, steady tennis, the latter being more accurate thatr her opponent, llawlinsou and Miss Smith gained a good victory when they defeated Black and Miss Bagley. Although Kaituna defeated Moana by 10 sets to 6, the difference in games was very small, Kaituna having a lead of only 4 games, and when it -is considered that Kaituna won four’of the matches, 9-8, it can easily be seep that the result could quite easily have been reversed. Dr Moody showed excellent form in all his matches, and in his singles against Guy he completely outplayed his opponent. Moody showed very sound judgment in this match, and picked’ his shots to go to the net on. Once at the net, Moody’s volleying was hard and accurate, and he generally managed to finish the rally with a clean ace. Guy could not manage to pass his opponent at the net, and his drives usually lacked pace. Duthio played a hard driving and volleying game to defeat Jensen, 9-3. Falconer sprung a surprise in defeating Phillips, 9-4, and fully deserved his win. The Kaituna man was making too many mistakes, and his play was very erratic. Mace, who played fourth for Moana, is a new player to Dunedin, having been recently transferred here from Wellington, He was sixth man for the Thorndon Club in Wellington, and while one could see he is not used to hard courts, he showed promise of being a decided acquisition to Dunedin tennis. He plays a nice style of game, but does not appear to have sufficient control of his shots. In hie singles match against Sherriff, he was frequently caught out of position and did not anticipate the return shots very well. In the ladies’ singles Miss White completely outplayed Miss Sherriff, and never let her opponent get going, taking the set, 9-0. One of the best ladies’ singles was seen between Mrs M'Dougall and Miss Aitken, the latter gaining a well-earned victory, 9-3. This was Miss Aitken’s first appearance in A grade matches, and on her performances in all her matches she proved herself worthy of her place in the team. Both»the ladies’ doubles went to Kaituna, 9-8. In the first ladies’ double the Moana ladies concentrated on'Mrs M'Kellar, who had to take the bulk of the play ; very few shots coming to Miss White._ Mrs M'Kellar, however, played consistently well, ami with well-placed drives kept her opponents on the move. The combined associations of South Canterbury, North Otago, Otago, and

Southland have decided to _ enter a' challenge for the Anthony Wilding Shield,, and a team of four men from the asso(nations’ players will bo f selected to play against the other challengers. The names of the players to represent the various associations have to be submitted to the New Zealand Association* which has the right to accept or nob accept the challenge. While it is not expected that this team will go far', if accepted, the experience gained by the players taking part in matches of this kind makes the challenge worth whileArrangements regarding the visit of the Australian ladies’ team were finaUsed at a meeting of the association this week. The team will arrive in Dunedin on Thursday, January 14, and play a match against an Otago team on the Friday and Saturday. In addition, the association is endeavouring to arrange for the Australian ladies to play an exhibition match on the Saturday afternoon. All matches put down for play, on January 16 will therefore be postponed, and will be played later in the season if necessary. The only A grade match put down for; play next Saturday was between Kaituna and University, but the latter clubis unable to raise a team, and it has therefore given Kaituna a win by default. Recent ladder matches resulted as follow;, —Guy beat M'Dougall, 4-6, 6-4* 6-4. ' Pearce beat Pollock, 5-7, .6-1, 6-1* Phillipps beat , Webling, v 6-0, 6-4., M'Dougall and Black beat Guy and Duthie, 2-6, 6-4, 9-7. Miss Partridge and Miss "White have now applied to be placed on the ladies’* ladder, and the ladder will therefore now be: 1, Miss Calver, 2_ Pattison, 3 Miss Partridge, 4 Miss White, 5 Miss Cook, 6 Miss Barton, 7 Miss Sherrill:, 8 Miss Bagley, 9 Miss Macadam* 10 Mrs Dyke, 11 Miss Rackley,.l2 Mrs Cheyne, 13 Miss Reid, .14 Miss Logan,. 15 Mrs M'Pherson, 16 Miss, Hill, 17, Miss Smith, 18 Miss Jolly, 19- Miss Flett. ; ■ , TENNIS UNION. 1 NOTES: The most suitable nights for playing union challenges on the .various club courts are as follow:—Kaikorai, any, night except Thursday; For bury, Thursday and Friday, preferably Friday; llavensbourne, Friday; Knox, any; night-except Thursday, but Friday , preferably. ■ ■ ‘ A few ladder matches have been arranged for this week. \ Results of these? will be published next Friday. The main match for Saturday will be* the A grade Forbury-Ravensbourne, at Forbury. As both these teams are so far Undefeated, the result will decide the A grade winners for the first round* Any forecast on the probable result would he difficult to make, but it is safe to say that there will he little difference between the teams. llavensbourne and Forbpry _arp still leading in the B I. section with three wins and one draw each, while Holy Cross, Methodists, St. Leonards, and Macandrew Road are equal with two ■wins each. In the B 11. section Forbury, Knox, and Kiwi are level with three wins* while llavensbourne and Kensington! are second with two wins. , The draw for the A grade as published is the same as the first round* with the grounds changed. No copies of this draw are beingsent, out, so club secretaries are asked to keep the newspaper copy. Forbury held a very successful ban-* dicap combined tourney last Saturday* Twenty-four pairs entered, < each of whom received three qualifying games.: After some very close finishes in the eliminating rounds Mrs Galbraith and J. Gibson eventually ran out winners, PLAYING HINTS. (5) The Lob and the Volley.—The. lob,. properly played, is not, as many players think, purely a defensive shot* A high lob is purely, defensive because the opposing player will have .plenty, of time to return the. ball. A low lob' falls to the ground sooner, and there is less likelihe i.of its being .returned* The main ■ point; about lobbing is to get the face of the racket well, underneath the ball. When one’s opponents is looking into a glaring sun the lob is a deadly weapon, and the quaint notion that it-is not sporting to lob in such a case should be abandoned* Your opponent may not .think so when you are facing the sun. There are many kinds of volleys—for example, the. high volley, volley, the stop volley, the lob volley* and the half-volley. The' high volley is played when the ball comes over the, net at a fair height, ■ and the most simple way to play it is to treat it as a drive, “drive volley,” in fact* being another-iiame for high volley. A' low volley, on the other hand, must be hit-with the racket face well under, the, ball, and, , generally speaking, in! making a low., volley the racket" head should be kept above the level of the wrist: The stop volley is purely a net shot, and as the ball strikes the racket the grip should be released slightly, so that the ball should fall nearly dead on the other side of the net. The lob volley is self-explanatory, it being simply a lob hit before the ball ha« bounced. The half-volley is perhaps the most difficult to cultivate. The ballmust be hit directly_ it has left the ground, and to do this it is absolutely essential to keep the eye on the bqll .- A ■ half-volley which has been hit too late usually provides your opponent with an easy net shot.