LAPSE AT TENNIS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23599, 7 March 1940, Page 16

LAPSE AT TENNIS

CAREER OF V. McGRATH VICTORIES OVER CHAMPIONS After a brilliant career as a youth, when ho accounted for no fewer than four world's tennis champions—E. Vines, F. J. Perry, J. H. Crawford and S. Wood—the well-known Australian Davis Cup player, Vivian McGrath, is now ranked sixth in New South Wales. Discussing McGrath's lapse Harry Hopman, manager of the Australian Davis Cup team, which recently brought the trophy back from America, said:—

"It. is pretty obvious why he has 'slipped'. He was doing a strung man's work before he was physically equipped to do it. If you care to turn back your newspaper files you will find a picture of McGrath and Perry lying utterly exhausted on the court —you remember their long Ovc-set battle in tho Australian . championship semi-final P "Well, Perry was '25 then. IJo was a perfect physical specimen, in his prime. If the match affected him as much as all that, what must it have done to a mere youth of 17 P"

McGrath's more recent lapses Jiavo been traced to arthritis, a painful condition of his ritfht shoulder and wrist. Some of McGrath's successes as a boy aro hero recorded:— Aged 15.—Beat Harada and Nunoi, Japanese Davis Cup players. Aged I(>.—Beat Ellsworth Vines, then world's champion; Wjlnier Allison, then No. '2 player of (he world; and Keith Gledhill. another of America's stars. Aged 17. —Beat world champion, Fred Perry, twice, and Jiro Haloli, also ranked in the world's list. Aged IN. —Beat Sidney Wood, former world title-holder, and French champion, Christien Boussns, both in vital Davis Cup matches. Aged 2l>—Won the Australian singles championship.