Tennis SHOTS THAT "QUEER"

NZ Truth, Issue 1304, 11 December 1930, Page 14

Tennis SHOTS THAT "QUEER "

Simple Errors of Tennis Which Mean The Losing of A Match v CONCENTRATE ON YOUR GAME ( (From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Tennis Writer.) This tennis is a queer game. A single shot, faultily played at a critical moment, has altered the course of many a big 1 match. Any tennis game, of course, is a collection of made and missed shots, but where there is little between the players it is the hitting m the pinches that counts.

CVEN the greatest of stars are not able . *-*' to stand the battering that comes ajt moments when an apparently defeated opponent turns and, with defeat m sight, 1 fights desperately m an endeavor to escape. j Those last-minute rallies are often too much for the man m the winning posi- [ tion — he is' flustered by the attack', his grip on the match relaxes and the op- ' ppnent escapes momentary defeat, consolidates his position and then piles up game after game on the rising wave of 2 restored confidence! ■ > New Zealand has- no more striking ex- [" ample of this than the match which B. - B. W. Smyth won at New Plymouth years ago after being two sets down, 0-5 and 1 (MO. Smyth took that match and took f the third set at a 7-5 score after getting 1 seven games m a row! Another striking 1 example was pro-

vided last time a representative women's team met New South Wales in' Wellington. Miss Marjorie Macfarlane, then New Zealand singles champion, had Miss Sylvia Lance (now Mrs. Harper), weH m hand and held seven match points. Once a shot struck by Miss Lance fell squarely on the base line. In those days, Miss Macfarlane

could not deal with short bounding balls, . and by dint of steady chopping. Miss : Lance drew her into hopeless positions. . and passes or lobbed her out of point J after point. , Miss Macfarlane rallied, but rallied too i late, for her opponent's game steadily . rose m quality until at last she was . definitely playing the«better tennis. . Again, there comes to njind ' the time ! when J. C. Parke, playing Norman Brookes for possession of the Davis Cup [ when Britain regained it from Australia . after the war, sent up a lob which drew I a grunt from Brookes as he turned at the tiet to chase It. Parke, a very fit man (he was an Irish Rugby representative three-quarter), knew that he had Brookes winded, and he persisted m tossing which gave him the match. Or, a few storeys lower m quality, take the match between Charlri Angas and C. E. Malfroy at the last New Zealand championships.' Both boys were m deadly fear of the other, and both were" playing ultra-cautious stuff. Whenever they met they went the whole five sets. Angas was playing slightly more steadily and Malfroy doing more forcing.

After losing an early lead, it looked all up Avith Malfroy, but after he pulled off the third set, it looked as though he might do it. He took the fourth to even the score, and started out with a 2-0 score m the next. He might, have been 3-0 when he held the chance, but served a double. Angas was ready to let Malfroy get away from him at that moment, or so it seemed, and the failure rallied him. He fought back, and when Malfroy had another chance for game he double-faulted once more. The strain told and Angas plodded his way to victory. Sometimes you can put your finger on the very point where a match was lost. A man who is cheated out of an earned point which would have given him a winning lead, but which the umpire failed to see, often reacts strangely. The idea is to play on as if it didn't matter, but that is rarely possible.