BAN ON SHORTS FOR TENNIS GIRLS

Southland Times, Issue 24132, 22 May 1940, Page 10

BAN ON SHORTS FOR TENNIS GIRLS

Tennis -circles in Coonamble, a New South Wales township, have been stirred by the banning of shorts for girls on certain courts.

“We allow girls to wear divided skirts, provided they reach to the knees,” declared an official. “The shorts that used to be worn were not very bad, but lately they have been getting too ‘short.’ Now we ban them. Shorts are not becoming to girls, anyway.” When the news of the ban spread, several prominent Sydney tennis players were asked what they thought , of abbreviated tennis wear. One girl interviewed on the subject was Miss Thelma Coyne, who is well known in New Zealand as a result of a visit paid to this country recently in company with Miss Nancy Wynne. The pair hold the Dominion doubles title. “If a universal ban on shorts were applied to Sydney,” said Miss Coyne, “there would be a wholesale sit-down strike of tennis players—and they would be sitting down in shorts, not long trousers or skirts.” Miss Coyne did not think there was the slightest suggestion of immodesty in shorts for girls—and most certainly not for men.

“Like a lot of new ideas, there was some opposition to them when they were first worn in Sydney,” she said,

“but then droves of overseas players came out here, nearly all wearing shorts. That was the end of the opposition. “The only alternative was for the tennis authorities to force the overseas stars to go back to long trousers and skirts. That would never have done. “Nearly all players in America, and England, too, wear shorts now. No exception is ever taken to them. It is rare to see players wearing long trousers or skirts in America.

“I wear shorts because I like them better; they are cooler, are more comfortable, and give more freedom,” she added.

Mrs M. Berg, another star Sydney player, was in favour of shorts, with reservations, though she didn’t like them for herself.

“Shorts can be too short sometimes,” she said, “and there’s no doubt that some girls’ shorts go tbo far—or, should I say, not far enough. “Most shorts, though, look like little pleated skirts. There’s nothing at all wrong, with them if they suit the wearer. If shorts suit a girl better than skirts, she should wear them. “I don’t wear them myself because I prefer a skirt.” Mrs Berg thought that all men should wear long trousers on the court, though she didn’t mind juniors wearing shorts. John Bromwich, , who covers his long legs with trousers just as long,: was approached on the matter. “I don’t wear shorts myself, so I am not very interested in them,” he said. “I don’t know when I am going to start wearing them,-but you can take it from me it’ll be a long while yet. “But everyone seems to think that girls look nice in shorts, so I think I’ll leave it at that.”