LAWN TENNIS AND HOW TO PLAY IT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3774, 13 July 1926, Page 77

LAWN TENNIS AND HOW TO PLAY IT.

By Suzanne Lenglen. (Copyright.—For the Witness.) V. How to Master the Back-haud Stroke. Practice and Patience—lmportance of the Stance—Stand Well Away from the Ball. I have said several times in this little series of articles that most lawn tennis strokes are easy if you go about producing them the right way from the start. Well, I don’t want to frighten anybody, but I am afraid I cannot say this about the back-hand stroke, particularly if my readers happen to have been playing it in the usual slovenly fashion (I make no excuse for calling it that) for a season or two. They will be up against difficulties, but I hope to show that these can be overcome. Don’t think that because your backhand stroke is poor that it will be impossible for you ever to become a great player. As a matter of fact, you are sinning in very distinguished company. Two of the players, both champions, who have been much in the public eye during the last few years were up against it just the same. One was Gerald Patterson, the young Australian player, and he had to start altering his back-hand—-even after lie had won the champion-, ship ! Miss Ryan, too, used to have a somewhat w eak back-hand stroke. Rather than go on losing points through it she set herself, with great patience, to alter it, and became greater <consequence. Mr J. C. Parke, the English international, spent two winters practising against a wall in his bach garden in order to improve his back-hand. It took me six months to learn how to play it, and quite tw r o years to produce a stroke which satisfied me at ail. It’s work, you see, and patience, and plenty of both. What are the causes which make so many people fail to produce a decent back-hand drive? I think they are three. They get their bodies in the wrong position, their feet in the wrong position, and their grip wrong. Well, I have explained the grip in a previous article, and you ought to have mastered it to some extent by now. Let me remind you again, however, that when you are not actually making a stroke, the splice—the neck, that is—of your racket should be resting on your left hand. Thi9 is very handy when you want to change from the fore-hand to the backhand grip—that little shift a-quarter of the way round the handle I told you about, don’t forget to change, either! 'Now about your feet. In playing a fore-hand shot the left foot is well ad- j vanced, pointing towards the net. In j the back-hand the opposite is the case. ! The right foot must be advanced, you j must stand quite sideways, not half and half, so that your right shoulder is pointing in the direction in Which you intend the hall to go when it is hit. Get those things right and you are on the way. And now comes the difficulty. Many people, who have courage and confidence to stand away from the ball, and swing at it freely and surely when it is on their fore-hand, make a sort of poke at it when it comes on their back-hand. That, which is just nervousness, must be conquered. Stand well away from the ball, just as I advised for other strokes; swing well back, letting your shoulder go as w 7 ell as your arm, and don’t Crook youl*elbow too much. The weight now is on the back foot, the left. As you swung in, and not before, let the weight come forward, and follow through even further than you swung back. Let the racket follow the ball, so to speak. That, and the thumb up the back of the handle will guide it. Many people who don’t exactly “ poke” in their back-liand stroke, try to hit too much. This is a mistake. Swing, timing to a fraction of a second, and that follow-through, which I must insist on again—all these, rather than hard hitting, get me my pace on the back-hand. It is a grave fault to get too near the ball. You want room. It is a fault to stand square, or even half-square. The correct position is sideways, and it is most of all a fault to take your eye off the ball until it has actually left the racket. Now that’s all there is in the backhand stroke, with the exception of a few little details which you can add afterwards. One, however, you ought to take care of from the start. The head of the racket must not be below the level of the wrist. If it is you get a kind of scoop up, and you will find it almost impossible to guide the ball. If you crook your elbow, and sort of pull the racket across your body, you will put spin on to the ball, which, particularly if you are driving down the lefthand side line, will almost certainly carry it out of the court. Spin on a ball is all right if you are doing it intentionally with something in view, but in any other case it is very much all wrong. However much you have practised on the court you will find that a moving ball will very likely make you forget all that you have had in mind. Nothing but practice will overcome this. If things go wrong try to think why. You will never get confidence in the back-hand stroke, for instance, if you are not very comfortable on your feet. As a matter of fact, the feet have a pecu-

liar effect on everything in this stroke, If you haven’t them placed just as I said you will find that they not only get in the way, but that your arm comes awkwardly across your body, and that your right shoulder gets out of place. ' You should finish the stroke with your body inclining forward on a line which extends right from the big toe of tho left foot to the end of your racket. There is no reason in the world why the backhand stroke should not he as graceful as the fore hand—in fact, I know one or two j ( vers who execute it with far more grace than they do the fore-hand shot. There is, for instance, Miss Kitty M‘Kane, the ex-champion. I have seen photographs of her, not posed, mind, but in action in a hard match, of which many a dancer would have been proud. That wonderful free swing of hers guides the ball to within a few inches of where she wants it to go. There is not “ elbow pull ” about that shot w hen it is properly played, and once you get hold of it one of the greatest terrors of the game will have passed away for ever. To be sure that your defence and attack on either “ wing ” is equal to the calls which will be made on them, is to begin to gain that confidence without which good lawn tennis, lawn tennis of the first class, is impossible.