THE WILDING SHIELD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 12

THE WILDING SHIELD.

HOLDERS' STRONG POSITION. BARTLEET DEFEATS bLLIVIER. [BY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION. J CHRISTCHUECH. Friday. The Wilding Shield match, between teams of four players from Auckland and Canterbury was begun at tho United Tennis Club's court to-day in a blustering southerly wind. Auckknd, the holders, won both tho doubles match and two of the four singles, so that Canterbury can only afford to lose one of the remaining six games if they are to recover the shield. The feature of play was the failure of Ollivier, who made a most feeble effort against Griffiths in the singles and was also beaten in''doubles with Greenwood by two Auckland juniors, who had been quite outclassed in their earlier singles. In the match with Ollivier Griffiths led 4—2 and 5 —3, winning the set with a service ace. Ho was serving and driving well, while Ollivier was languid. From 3-all in the second set Ollivier led 5—3, and although he lost the lead from 40 —15, he ran out the winner after deuce had been called twice. * In the third set Griffiths ran to five—love. Ollivier, who served three double faults, was ■ love —40. He pulled up to deuce and Griffiths had advantage three times but lost it. Ollivier took the next two games with good placements. However, Griffiths ran out 6—3. There was nothing in Seay's match against Johns, but the finest exhibition nf the day was Bartleet's defeat of JDon France, whom he outdrove completely. The Aucklanaer's serving and volleying was the more accurate. France, of course, had played three hard matches on the previous day. Bartleet and Griffiths also registered a fine win against Seay and France, They were down 2—5 in the second set, in which Canterbury had set point, but great serving by Barlcet helped Auckland out t<j win B—6.