LAWN TENNIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18735, 13 December 1922, Page 5

LAWN TENNIS

MOVEMENT FOR REFORM. SOME -PLAIN SPEAKING. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, December 11. (Received Dec. 12, at 5.5 p.m.) The annual meeting of the Lawn Tennis Association was unusually crowded and lively owing to the reform movement cabled on November 18. Mr Wallis Myers, the reformers’ leader, criticised the council strongly for giving Spain a walk-over in the Davis Cun preliminaries. He pointed out that Italy was making her debut in the Cup, and Czecho-Slovakia. Belgium, and even Rumania, although all realised they were sure to be beaten and most of them wore short contested the matches. If the council had considered Great Britain’s tennis prestige it would not have made such a humiliating surrender. Mr Myers also attacked the inhospitable treatment extended to foreign and overseas competitors. and quoted Patterson's statement in Australian newspapers contrasting the casual official reception received in England with the wav the Australians were treated in the United States. The new council includes a good proportion of reformers, five out of sis candidates in the southern are.a and six out of nine in the home counties being reformers. Mrs Lambert Chambers was elected. She is the first woman to bo elected to the council. The reformers’ scheme for constitutional reconstruction was referred to the new council, but a motion to debar a representative of the manufacturers from competing in any tournament was defeated by a large majority.—A. ad N.Z. Cable. [The cable message referred to stated:— The Council of the Lawn Tennis Associarion at its annual meeting on. December 11 "proposes to alter the rules to give Australia, Canada. India, and New Zealand, the navy, marines, and air 'forces each the right to nnnoint a member to the council, and forbidding everyone but amateurs to sit on the council. It also, proposes to amend the regulations governing prize meeting, prohibiting from competing anyone who receives, directly or indirectly, monetary remuneration for goods especially supplied. or services in connection with a meeting, or anyone who represents any manufacturers of halls, nets, posts, and racquets. There is an important reform movement afoot in connection with the association. The reformers intend contesting many scats on iho council, with the object of electing a more progressive element, Tin? meeting on December 11 will also appoint British representatives to the International Board. A meeting will lr? hold on December ?.0 to consider the Davis Cup regulations, including the proposed geographical divisions for the preliminary rounds* The new prize meeting regulations will bring lawn tennis into line with the reccn f lv formulated definition of an amateur golfer.]