NOT YET!

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17711, 4 December 1925, Page 4

NOT YET!

U.S.A. TENNIS VISIT. NEW YORK, November 26. “ This winter it was expected that a tennis team would be sent to Australia, but at the moment of writing it seems most unlikely,” writes William T. Tilden in a special message to “ The Sun.” “ Richards cannot well leave his wife and new daughter, w'hile Johnston, Williams, Kinsey and I have business affairs which would not permit of three months’ vacation. It is a pity we cannot send a team. “ During the last five years Australia’s best have play-ed on our courts, and given a great impetus to the game in America. We owe them a return visit. Our association wishes to send a team, y r et it just cannot be arranged. Before long our leading stars must go ‘ down under,’ or Me shall lose our Australian friends i*i the Davis Cup. matches. “ It is unfair to ask them to risk a loss unless we reciprocate. Next year should see Holman, Lott. Williams, Hennessey, Casey, and others quite good enough to take the places of Johnston, Richards and myself. “ Certainly, if the Davis Cup is lost in thd next few years, sdine new- players will be badly needed for the attempt to bring it back. “ I imagine that the days of roaming the world An quest of the Davis Cup are over for Johnston, Williams and me. Time and age both press us. We must develop our best young players.”

Jack Dempsey may fight his most persistent challenger, Harry Wills, in Los Angeles. Although the proposed bout will be a motion picture battle in the sense that it will be financed by motion picture money and fought in front of a battery of cameras, it will be a bona fide championship bout, not just another Dempsey film. Although summer has not been too noticeable in Christchurch so far we have been more fortunate., here than in the other three centres, that is, if the number of days on which cricket has been played so far, is anything to go .by. In Christchurch, a start was made on the fourth series of matches last Saturday, whilst on the same dayin Wellington a start was made on the third series; in Auckland the second series was concluded, and in Dunedin all cricket had to be put oft for the third time this season. On his day, G. It. Gregory, of the East Christchurch Cricket Club, is one of tlie best batsmen in Christchurch, but lie is inclined to he erratic. For instance, last Saturday against West Christchurch lie played a good knock for 72, but in the previous gam e with St Albans he was dismissed for 2 and 4. Gregory has played for Canterbury on several occasions. Last season he did not playin any Piunket Shield matches, but he represented the province in the last game of the season, that against the Victorians, when he made 28. Gregory is regarded as one of the certainties for the Canterbury team this season. The end of the famous “W.G.” Just | how many cricket lovers the wide world over are conversant with the fact that j Grace died in an air raid? ITe was lying in bed, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sydenham, suffering from an affection of the heart. Suddenly the guns went off, and the excitement went straight to W.G.’s heart, and, weakened by a long illness, the celebrated “old man” was no more. Clarry Grimmett, the Australian and ex-Wellington “bosey” bowler, has made an excellent beginning this season to impress the critics that he is one of the men for Australia on the great tour. lie secured five wickets in each innings against West Australia, and again five against Victoria in the first innings, the cost being comparatively small in each. He has proved, too, that his eggs are not all in one basket, as he is also getting runs freely. As Grimmett, like Mailey, is a trundler of the slow leg break and bosey variety, and the official selectors will doubtless determine on including only one “trickster” of this type, the allround qualifications of the rivals will become important. The Paris correspondent of the London “ Observer ” made some pungent remarks the other day. “No doubt there are people in France,” he said, “who take a national pride in the French open golf championship having been won by Massey, one of their own colmtrymen, who won the British championship eighteen years ago/ They may even congratulate .themselves on having eight French players in the first twenty. I confess I have more sympathy with the other expression of French national pride which would prefer not to see a French golf championship exist at all. Let Englishmen make a religion of this Scottish game, but France should first of all be French. Lawn tennis is all very well, for it suits the French character, and after all, do not its origins come from France. Bqt there is a cosmopolitan uniformity about golf which makes the places where it is played as little French as the jazz bands have made the boulevard restaurants and the Montmartre ‘dancings.' It is perhaps consoling that a golf course is nOt so easy to build.”

Tenuis throughout world in ISJ26 will be played with the nearest .approach to a standard ball that machinery can produce as the result of a *iecision by the International Lawn Tennis Federation fixing the limits of the sphere’s compression under pressure, to not more than .315 of an inch nor Jess than .290 of an inch. The decision resulted from an investigation by ' a committee of four from France, England, Australia and the United States, which was appointed to examine into the question of compression after it had been found that the balls used in several countries varied by a wide; margin in their action off the racquet and off the ground. This condition, which prevailed in spite of the fact that the federation had adopted specifications governing size, weight and height of rebound, was found to be due to the fact that no two manufacturers employed the same formula in regulating the hardness of the ball*. Tests made by the committee showed the ball made in England and used at Wimbledon to be much harder than the American sphere. It consequently impressed American players as being heavy, while the American product seemed light and flighty to English players. The new regulation, which goes into effect on January 1, will require the English ball to be softened and the American ball to be hardened.