RELENTLESS ATTACK OF W. T. TILDEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17647, 21 September 1925, Page 7

RELENTLESS ATTACK OF W. T. TILDEN.

HIS SUPREMACY AND ITS SECRET. Outside France wc find that the two outstanding players of the Continent are Von Kebrling, of Hungary, and Froitzheim. of Germany, both of whom in singles are pre-eminently baseliners (writes Captain B. H. Liddell Hart in a London paper). This is said with all recognition of ICehrling’s consummate volleying and powerful service, which arc but the secondarv armament of this great player, who might easily have reached the final at Wimbledon but for the mischance which compelled him to meet that most pertinacious of baseliners, Colonel Mayes, before he had found his touch and timing on grass. This lesson, or rather revival of old truths, is reinforced by events on the ! other side of the Atlantic, where TilI den is becoming more and more a baseliner exclusively. Bursting into fame

originally as a typical American exponent. of hurricane service and volleying attack, he developed first into an allcourt player, and then finally into a baseliner. In the American championships last year he beat Johnston in straight sets without coming to the net more than once cr twice throughout. This summer he has beaten Richards five times running, after an initial defeat. and has done it by almost pure baseline play. But, it. may be said, surely England produces baseliners par excellence, capable of keeping a rally alive until the spectators arc more exhausted than the players, so how is it that this swing of the pendulum has not enhanced the standing of English tennis? The answer is that our baseliners, unlike their forerunners, the Dohertys or S. H. Smith, are passive defenders, without the decisive counter-attacking power that. Lacoste possesses, still less the continuously offensive driving of Tilden. Tilden to-day is as remorselessly sure off the ground as our baseliners. but in addition he has two factors which

against the world s best —the crushing force of his drives, in which speed is not. sacrificed to safety or vice versa, and the command of spin, by which he is always varying his attack and surprising his opponents. English players have arrived “at the baseline’’ by habit or tradition rather than by scientific thinking, as haw. Tilden and Lacoste, and until they study the science of the game they cannot hope to turn baseline play into a trump card.