MILE SUZANNE LENGLEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19905, 27 September 1926, Page 13

MILE SUZANNE LENGLEN.

BECOMES A PROFESSIONAL. £20,000 CONTRACT SIGNED. “AMATEUR RULES RIDICULOUS.” (From 1 vn Own Correspondent.) LONDON, August It, A contract has been signed by Mile Suzanne Lenglen, the tennis player, by which she agrees to tour America, Canada, Cuba, and Mexico during a period of four months, for a lump sum of 100,000 dollars (f°o 000). She will arrive, in New York on October 1. and the first exhibition game will be played on October 10. _ It is Mr Charles Pyle, an American sports promoter now in Paris, who has persuaded her to take a step which involves her becoming a professlbnal. She will therefore no longer be eligible for the Wimbledon championships, which are strictly amateur. The question which at once springs to the mind is: Who will play with her? It is very doubtful if the American L.T.A.

Svill allow amateurs to take part in these exhibition games. Yet Mr Pyle announces that she will meet the best United States players. It is said that he believes that many of . them will turn professional. According to Mr Pyle, the matches are to be played •in the United States, Canada, Cuba and Mexico. Mile Lenglen will leave France on September 22. arriving in New York about October 1, and will begin her matches after a week’s rest. She will be accompanied by her mother and her maid. Mr Pyle added that In his opinion tennis

should be treated on the same lines as golf—that is to say. that oner, tennis meetings should be held in which professionals and amateurs would play together. NINETY VICTORIES. Suzanne Lenglen, who was born on May 24, 1890, has been described as the greatest woman tennis player who ever stepped into a court. Mile. Lenglen has only once been beaten since she won the Wimbledon championship. Thot was in the famous American tour, when she retired owing to illness after being one set down to Mrs Mallory, who in consequence took the American title. , Mile. Lenglen, up to the spring of this year, had won 30 challenge cups, representing a total of 00 victories. The most important of them are:—Six times womens singles championship at Wimbledon, six times women’s doubles championship at

Wimbledon, three times _ mixed doubles champion at Wimbledon, six timei. women s singles championship at St. Cloud and Brussels (hard courts). At the Olympic games at Antwerp in 1920 she won the women’s singles championship and the mixed doubles. A RECONSIDERED ATTITUDE. When Suzanne first held tlu championship she had also the warm affection of all tennis players. In recent years, owing to an unfortunate succession of scenes during play, and non-attendance when due t- plav, a strong Lenglen reaction has set in.' Her brilliant play, however, still makes her an attractive figure, and it was stated last March that she had been offered £IO,OOO at Nice to tour America and meet Miss Helen Wills there. Her reply was that “she would always play as an amateur.” . "America does not contain sufficient money to tempt me to turn professional, she added. “ I am not interested in business offers.” She has reconsidered that attitude. MLLE. LENGL... EXPLAINS. Mile. Lenglen herself is perfectly frank. “Now that I have signed my contract, she said in a statement to the Paris press, “I feel certain that I have done a good thing. My career as an amateur is now really over. Whatever one says, I have followed it with all my heart. I have had unique luck, I imagine, in having never known defeat, and I rejoice not only for myself, but because of the good it has done for the sport in my own country. . . , “But in thus breaking away from the past in order to consider the future I thought of the fate which awaited me if I acted any longer in a disinterested manner, and the result was not very cheerful A gradual falling off, failure, and then nothing but a memory and the terrible bitterness, of which I have already had a foretaste, of having been a great champion but now being completely forgotten. It seems to me that I have done enough for the sport for it to do something for “At the same time,” concluded Mile. Lenglen, “it is not without melancholy that I nave jus. oken off all sporting connections with amateur events, and to show that there is still some of my old apir. left, I assure you that I shall be very pleased if, before I go to America, I may be able to help in some big sporting for the elief of the franc.” “For year*,”' she said on another occasion, “Americans have been pestering me to turn professional, and at last, when I was at Nice last year, I agreed to consider a proposal from an agent of Mr C. C. Pyle, with whom the contract was signed. "I refused to give an immediate reply. When Mr Pyle himself crossed the Atlantic, however, I agreed to his terms. And why should I not? I think I have been an amateur long enough. Amateur tennis rules are ridiculous. They make provision only for the rich. If you are poor you cannot play in the amateur championships. £n association ought to be formed of amateurs who refuse to abide by the absurdly severe amateur rules. They ought to say, ‘We will play against whom we like, whether our opponents are amateurs or professionals. We want tot be matched against the best class d elayers, not the best class of social rank.’ Mile. Lenglen said that tennis should be treated on the same lines as golf, that open tennis matches should be held in which professionals and amateurs should play together. Why was there a distinction between the two games, she asked? .. FAR-REACHING RESULTS. “The results of Suzanne’s action on the game at large may not be seen at once,” writes the Daily Telegraph correspondent, “but in my nninion they cannot fail to be significant. There is no player to-dav of her skill and experience, but if Mile Lenglen, finds it lucrative to become, a profess ion _1 it is obvious that others will follow in tier footsteps. There may not be other Suzannes, but there will be other Mr Pyles, and if the ambitions of the latter do not soar ns high their enterprise will increase if the public support them. This public patronage need not come from tennis lovers per se; it will bo rendered by the ever-expanding legions the world over who are attracted by the spectacle < young and agile women Performing at a fascinating ball-game. No governing body can check this curiosity. Several governing bodies as a corporate institution have, indeed, _ profited by it. There can be no question that the big ‘gates’ at Wimbledon and elsewhere have tempted professio n organisers to stage exhibition matchc-. If the latter succeed, as they are very likely to succeed, the quality of play in the amateu'r ranks will relatively depreciate, since the professional's opportunity for good match play. which be has hitherto lacked, will be increased, while that of the amateur, unless he is able to compete against the professional, is likely to be reduced. "I do not think th latest Lenglen event can be dismissed ns an incident necessarily peculiar to the Fre, ch champion. It may very .ell I- the beginning of a new eooeb in the history of lajvn tennis, an epoch that will not reveal any loss of popularity, but an ora in which by the force of changing hab'ts and the influence of a democratic ag' most of the old traditions H na. . It may be that we are reaping where we have sown, that in sanctioning so many ‘gate’ tournaments those controlling the amateur game have, however unconscious!' - , altered the material aspect of lawn tennis. The past may have forgotten the present, whereas the future is always governed by the past.”