LAWN TENNIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12856, 3 May 1905, Page 7

LAWN TENNIS.

DOES CUTTING A BALL DESTROY

ACCURACY?

Writing to the Field (London) on the "cut" in lawn tennis, our old friend P. A. Vaile says: —So many correspondents refer to cutting a. ball as tending to destroy the accuracy of the game that it has occurred to m«. to mention a few of our leading playeri who habitually use it, Mr. H. L. Doherty very frequently plays his lowbackhand volleys with a draw across the ball. He nearly always plays his forehand with a cut on the side of the ball nearer to him. Mr. 11. S. Mahouy always cuts, and undercuts at that, his: backhand. He occasionally chops on the forehand. He almost invariably cuts, with up cut, his service. Dr. Eaves cuts a good deal on his forehand, and his service is, of course, always played with up cut or lilt. Mr. Ball Greene cuts nearly everything, yet I do not think anyone will say that his play is very wild. Miss Douglass cuts nearly every forehand drive on the side of the ball nearer to her. Miss Thomson always cuts her very accurate service. Mr. Ritchie often chops his forehand return. One of Mr. S. H. Smith's best drives is made with cut on the near side of the ball when playing from left court to left court. Mr. Cazalct uses the forehand cut service, and serves very accurately with it. 1 need scarcely refer to M. de Bornian's excessively cu'« service, which is, for all that, not very-erratic."

As a matter of fact, cut does not ruin the accuracy of lie game. In, its place .'it increase- it. as, it properly applied, it unquestionably gives the player greater command of the ball. This is no- understood here as it should be, and, although so many '.fading players, a- mentioned above, habitually use,my (?) much-abused "chops and spins," the king of them all, "lift," is finite neglected. This is one of the greatestwants in English lawn tennis, both on the forehand and on the back. Lift to a great extent gives length, and enables one to hit the ball much harder, and yet. keep it in court, than is possible when hitting the ball with the plain face of the racket. Chop or undercut, on the other hand, tends to make the ball hold up and sail over the base line, particularly when played against the wind. I have seen main a fine backhand shot of Mr. Mahony's which with lift would have been 3ft inside the court, because he undercuts the ball, go nearly as many out, of it. Chops and spins and lift and cut and centre theory are not new fads. They are solid, useful portions of the game, each in its own place. Each has already had its vogue, but the safety play of the present day has caused them to be buried. I am endeavouring to resuscitate .them., for, .properly used, they will improve the game: but they are no more the game than is centre theory. As centre theory is the complement of diagonal play, <o is rotation the natural complement of plain ball stroke*. >