LAWN TENNIS

Evening Star, Issue 22233, 10 January 1936, Page 5

LAWN TENNIS

[By Recorder.]

Fixtures. January 16 to 18.—Waitaki Subassociation’s tournament. j,

Easter Dates. Auckland Association’s tournament. Wellington Association’s tournament. Otago and South Island championship and handicap tournament at Logan Park, Dunedin. New Zealand Championships, The championships which were completed at Wellington last Saturday will go down in the lawn tennis history of the Dominion as noteworthy for the brillianf displays given by M'Grath (Australia) and E. D. Andrews (New Zealand). Andrews showed throughout the tournament that he is not far behind M'Grath, Australia’s No. 2 ranked player, and demonstrated that. ho is capable of being able to hold his own when matched against a world’s ranked player. The surprise in'the first day’s play of the championships was the defeat of Miss D. Miller, the fourth seeded player, by Mrs N. Dickson (better knojvn as Miss Doris Howe). . Mrs Dickson is second player to Miss D. Nieholls in Wellington, and a verysteady player with a big fighting heart. She has one of the best backhands for a woman in New Zealand, and her forehand drive, ■ when she is able to get pace into it, has a disconcerting cut which t makes the ball shoot on landing. She is very safe overhead and in volleying, and she uses the court well and never gives in until the last point has been played. The Wellington girl, however, needed all her shots against Miss Miller, who made untiring efforts to wear her.-op-ponent down. That the match’ was even is evident from the score, both players winning 14 games. In the first round of the men’s singles J. C. Robertson, of Otago Club, did well to take a set from D. C. Coombe,' who defeated l Angas' in the tile quarter finals. G. A. Pearce, the ex-Dunedin player, put up a good flight against N. G. Sturt, but he could not handle effectively Sturt’s long raking drives, which kept very low on hitting the ground. Sturt was also too good at the net and overhead, and his fast service was difficult to handle in the tricky w-ind l conditions. Pearce mad© too many mistakes in the net. . After a baa start in the men’s doubles E. A. and,‘G. A. Pearce won their first round match of the doubles against Livingstone and Jenkinson, of Waikato. The match was won by the Pearce brothers mainly because of the' brilliant returning of service, volleying, and smashing of E. A. Pearce, while he was well supported by the serving of G. A. The Pearce' brothers, however, met their match in the higher class play r and experience of D. G. France and N. Sturt, who dominated the net almost throughout and forced the opposition into errors. The winners volleyed and smashed to deadly effect, and were accurate in returning service. The biggest upset of the men’s singles was D. C. Coombe’s defeat of Angas in a five-set match after something like three hours’ play. It was a battle of tactics by two first-rate defensive players, who are also adepts at placing and in changing their length and pace. Angas started badly and lost the first two sets by constantly netting his forehand. Seeing that Angas was failing,to clear the net with this stroke, Coombe gave him plenty of encouragement to continue, and only drove to the backhand when he played Angas wide out on the forehand side. In the fifth set Apgas pulled up from down 3-5 to 5 all, and led 6-5 and 7-6. At this stage Coombe ceased trying to pass Angas at the net, and resorted to lobbing,. Angas frequently smashing into the net or over the back line. Coombe regained the lead at 8-7, and fortunately for him won the sixteenth game for match just when the light was beginning to fail. . The semi-final of the singles saw a brilliant match between E. D. Andrews and E. F. Moon (Australia). In defeating Moon, Andrews gave the finest exhibition of dean, hard driving he has. ever shown in Wellington (says the ‘ Dominion ’). For two sots he went with the mechanical accuracy of a machine, the ball flying to within inches of the side-lines and right into the corners, backhand and forehand. He never defended Moon’s fast service, but hit hard with an action by which the ball appeared to be topped with a swift wrist movement. This enables the ball to drop quickly, so that it is not carried out by its pace. His backhand carried slice. His service had a big kick, and was so placed as to force Moon out of court to receive it and so give Andrews plenty of room to play his drive if Moon returned the ball. Many of these drives Moon had no hope of returning, although ho anticipated well their direction, mainly to his backhand. In the other semi-final D. Coombe was outplayed by V. M'Grath. It did, not matter what Coombe did, M'Grath was able to go one better. M'Grath won the final by defeating Andrews by three sets to one. Andrews attacked strongly throughout and went near to taking a 2 set to 1 lead when he held set point at 6-5 in the third set. At this stage Andrews was visibly tiring and .suffering from sore feet, no doubt an after-effect from his previous day’s match against Moon. In the fourth set M'Grath kept .Andrews on the move, and outplayed the New Zealander to take the championship. Miss Nieholls won the ladies singles, but she was hard pressed in the final by Miss N. Beverley, who changed her tactics when in a winning position. With a 4-1 lead in the second set Miss Beverley was within sight of . victory, but sbe ceased to attack and tried playing Miss Nieholls from the base line, but could not stand up to the Wellington girl’s strong driving. Notes. While in Dunedin Vivian B. M'Grath stated that it was anticipated that Australia would challenge this year for the Davis Cup in the American zone. He believed that this V'ould be a much better idea than entering a challenge in the European zone, as had been done in recent years. In the American zone the climatic conditions were more suitable, and there were only one or

two nations to play instead of four or more in the European zone. He was of the opinion that if Australia could defeat America it would meet Germany as the winners of the European, zone for the right to play Great Britain, the holders of the trophy. The Australians would be selected after the Australian championships in January. ■ The outstanding result of the first day’s play of the Wellington championships was A. E. France’s defeat of G. A.'Pearce, the ex-Otago representative (says the ‘ Dominion ’). This was France’s first tournament match for about four years. ■ It was noticeable that the same cut-strokes, lohs, dropshots, placed smashes, and angled volleys were still present in his play. Pearce made many well-placed returns after getting to France’s drop-shots, and also brought off several winning smashes, and won games with his fast service. In the mam, however, Franca outplaced him and outsteadied him. In the second set (which Pearce won) Prance’s angled drop-shots were turned against him by Pearce, 1 but in the first and third sets France had command of the court and made very few mistakes. He worked for his positions with great skill. If Pearce tried to crowd the net France lobbed him in those two sets, but in the middle one his lobbing was too short. Because France’s ground-strokes carried so much spin,'Pearce had to handle them carefully, and so France had not to deal- with balls that carried very much pace. France concentrated mainly on Pearce’s backhand, only switching over to the forehand when he had made a wide-open court by earlier placements. Interclub match for the intermediate, 81., and CT. grade recommence tomorrow,, and A,, BIT., and GII. on Saturday, January 18.