ROYALTY AND TENNIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19397, 4 August 1926, Page 13

ROYALTY AND TENNIS.

DUKE OF YORK AS PLAYER< COMPETITOR AT WIMBLEDON* [from our own CORRESPONDENT.'] LONDON. July 2. It was very sporting of the Duke of York to enter for the championship tennis meeting at Wimbledon. He is a lefthand player. The Duke, partnered by Wing-Commander Louis Greig, played in the men's doubles against Messrs. A. W. Gore and H. Roper Barrett, who were the winners in 1907 of a great doubles match in the final of the Davis Cup against Norman Brookes and A. F. wilding, and in the following year won the doubles championship at Wimbledon. The Duke of York is immensely keen, and ho plays the orthodox doubles game in an honest," straightforward way. But he cannot lay claim to much experience, and it was a little unfortunate for him that he was up against a player, in Roper Barrett, whose like he had probably never encountered before. For Barrett still excels at those "childlike and bland-look-ing" shots which seem so simple and are really so hard. r The match was played on court &, around which the Duchess and a largo throng assembled. There had been some talk of staging if, on the centre court, but the Duke intimated in his modest way that while he was quite prepared to do what he was told by the executive and was anxious that his opponents should appear on a court worthy of their prestizo he, as a newcomer to the tests, did not deserve any special prominence, fho Duke won his first service gams, and he 'acknowledged the delight or the crowd by exchanging a smile with .tho Duchess. Later he made some well-timed, wellplaced service returns besides some scorW smashes. But his side was not destined to win a set. Experience was against ibeni.