MONEY AND TENNIS

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1934, Page 11

MONEY AND TENNIS

HELEN JACOBS’S STORY.

Amateurism! What a fine word, that is! What presumptions of noble effort it conjures up, writes Helen Jacobs in the “Sunday Chronicle.”

One who plays the game for pure love of it, without remuneration; with glory, perhaps, and often with disappointment. Of course, one gives much in the way of physical and mental energy to the game because one knows that glory is the best that can await one, and it requires these things to win it. This is the picture most of the sporting public would like to have of amateur tennis. The host of incidental considerations that never occur to the public make amateur tennis the thilng it really is. In the first place there is the gate. In the 1932 final of the men’s national singles championship between Ellsworth Vines and Henri Cochet, in America, close to 15,000 people attended the match. The seats averaged around 7/6 apiece. These two players, responsible for the money that went into the treasury of the United States Lawn Tennis Association, received a certain amount for their expenses. What a hue and cry is put up by certain ones of the Press, and the public, too,' at the thought that these amateur players receive expenses allowances, possibly liberal ones! There is one answer to that. Is there any reason why amateurs should pay to make money for any organisation? The answer of those who have done it is “no.”

Those things that come under the heading of incidental considerations are, in part, clothes, laundry, masseurs, doctors, transportation, professionals’ fees. At first glimpse one is apt to feel that these items would occur in the life of anyone, whether or not he played tennis. This, however, is the point: Say our amateur player is to play in France, America, and Britain. In France the heat is apt to be unbearable or quite mild—one can never be sure which. That requires one sort of wardrobe. In Britain it will most certainly be cold and rainy part of the time: another sort of wardrobe. In America during July, August, and probably September it will be extremely hot; a third sort of wardrobe. This involves a large item of expense that doesn’t come under the heading of any association allowance.

DOCTOR AND MASSEUR. One ha's only to make a tennis tour once to understand the laundry item. Our player makes constant use Qf the masseur to obviate, if possible, the doctor. He is playing in various climates. His muscles react differently in each. He is apt to take cold without the stimulating effect of massage. If he has strained any muscles the masseur relaxes and strengthens them. Thereby the player keeps himself in good condition. One year in France my doctor’s bills amounted to mote than my expenses for the entire trip. I went down to the Riviera to play. In order to arrive on time and having missed the Blue Train, I was obliged to take a train on which there were no sleepers. I sat up all night in a compartment with four other people. We rode to the Riviera during an electrical storm. The compartment was cold and draughty, and I arrived in Nice in the first stages of pleurisy and quinsy. I was foolish to do that, of course; but I was the guest of the French Federation and felt an obligation to play. The result was one of my most unpleasant tennis experiences. I spent the entire two months of my sojourn at Nice, Cannes, Beaulieu, and Monte Carlo playing tennis spasmodically, and against the advice of my doctor, and watching the Riviera activities on the qu,ay through the window from my bed the rest of the time.

If I hadn’t been going to the south of France to play tennis, if I had been merely a visitor, I would have gone more leisurely and comfortably, and in all probability I wouldn’t have taken sick and been forced to retire from the American season that year, 1930.

Another experience connected with this same Riviera episode partially explains the matter of transportation. In Cannes I- stayed at a hotel quite some distance from the tennis club. A car furnished by the hotel took the players from the hotel to the club twice a day. In other words, if you played at approximately two and four you could go to the club in the hotel car a reasonable time before your match. Otherwise you would have to wait from one to two and sometimes three hours before playing.

A great many players feel as I do about this. If they are obliged to watch the matches or sit in the clubhouse very long before playing they become either nervous or bored, or both. And neither state is especially conducive to good tennis. When I realised that most of my matches in Cannes were either scheduled for 3 o’clock or very late, around 5 or 6, I hired a car to take me to the club. That expense was not legitimate in the opinion of the Tennis Federation, so it automatically went on my personal expense account. If we are going to take our player through the tennis season there is one thing we must consider:'his practice. During the major European tournaments, the championships of France and England., it is impossible to rely upon one’s iellow-players for practice. It may happen that those with whom he wishes to play are not at liberty to do so when he is; or his possible practice partner might have other matches later on, or difficult ones the next day, and not care to practise. Automatically he turns to the professional, whose fees abroad are not particularly reasonable. Thiscan sometimes run into quite an expense. The last time I played in the French championships I had a rather difficult draw. During the first week, which is devoted solely to doubles, I sought singles practice wherever I could find it. I felt that one of my strokes was going badly, and I wanted all the practice I could get, in the hope that I could bring it into shape by the semi-final, provided I got that far. By the end of the second week, which included the singles, my bill with the professional was almost as much as my hotel bill! NO ACCOUNT. When the English Wightman Cup team goes to America it is not given an expense allowance. The manager of the team is given the players’ hotel money and he pays .the players’ hotel ’ and transportation expenses. I know several players of promise in England

' who have said that they could not afford to go to America under that 1 arrangement, because the incidental expenses were almost as great as those more concrete ones that were taken care of by the association. When individuals are playing for tennis championships, or teams are competing in international matches, certain psychological aspects of their participation should be respected. It: is impossible to expect players to do well whose lives, during the tennis weeks, are a dull routine. Players require diversions —the theatre, the movies, or whatever amusement of that nature diverts them.

One of the English girls, in speak- x ing to me about the team allowance, told me her “theatre expenses were jolly high,” but that was the only forms of entertainment she enjoyed. It seems too bad that players of promise should be prevented from making these valuable trips simply because it is necessary for them not to make money, but to clear all expenses. I have been asked times without number why, inasmuch as I write articles on tennis, I am not considered a professional. The amateur ruling states, in words to this effect, that one may write on tennis provided he does not use any title he may have or any reference .to tennis on the “by-line,” and that he may not write about tournaments in which he is competing. My personal opinion, for what it is worth, is that an amateur should be considered one who neither plays for money nor teaches the game for money. Unless an amateur accepts reimbursement out of all proportion to his expenses, and manages, to receive money for using the goods of certain sporting houses without being discovered, he cannot possibly do more than clear all his expenses; for whatever he makes is bound to go fight back into the game in one way or another. It is the opinion of a great many people that amateur players must haye great love for the game to foregq the opportunities professionalism offers. I don’t know how many of the amateurs I can speak for, but for myself I can say that the thought of never being’able to feel again the intense excitement and thrill of the great tournaments at Wimbledon, .Paris, and Forest Hills is enough to keep me for some time to come in the amateur ranks.