LAWN TENNIS: HOW TO PLAY IT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17880, 23 June 1926, Page 6

LAWN TENNIS: HOW TO PLAY IT.

(BY SUZANNE LENGLEN.) NO. 2. First steps In FlaytaST- • • Oetttojr tile JUSTUS M«‘ from, the Start. . • - How to Hold the Racauet. . ■ for the Forehand Stroke. . . And the BaCl (In these articles MU®. Suzanne Lenglen has set herself to explain to the average amateur how the game should be played to secure the best result. An article from her pen will appear every Wednesday in the “Stax.”)

Lawn tennis looks so easy, doesn t it. when you see two experts playing it. Yet through how many dreary nouis of despair must a beginner live before he can reach even average form. I wonder it it will encourage the beginner to know that a good many players, who have reached one point and who stick there, wish that they could begin all over again ? They’ won’t do it, of course, because while they ! are unlearning their ! faults they will play. I worse , than ever, but it would be a very good thing for them if they would do so. The trouble is that most players start wrong. There are not enough lawn tennis coaches in the country to go round. A man or a girl buys a racket, joins a club, watches indifferent players, and copies their faults. There are men and women in lawn tennis to-day* the Wimbledon class of lawn tennis I mean, who, if they had ‘only begun right, would be now very near to championship form. et they , stick where they are, and, so set are . their faults, that they cannot ever hope j to improve. Now that is the reason why I am j going to insist on little details at the start. You may think I’m writing about.; things that don’t matter, but, believe me, I'm not. Every little detail counts, and if you get one of them wrong you will pay the penalty. Everybody, I suppose, thinks they know how to hold a racket. Simplest thing in the world, isn't it? Don’t get running away with any idea like that! To begin with, in England, people are under a bit of a handicap. Those great players the Dohertys used to use what was called the “unchanging grip.” You know that in lawn tennis there is a forehand and a back-hand stroke, and in making both these, these great brothers did not alter their hold on the racket. Now don't get this wrong. It suited them and their style of game, and in their day there was no one in the world to beat them. But the unchanging grip does not suit one player in a hundred. Take Miss Joan Fry, for instance, who met me in the final last year. She held her racket perfectly for her fore-hand stroke, but she' never altered her .grip when she wanted to hit a ball back-hand. This year, I hear, she is altering her grip, and her game cannot fail to improve. First let’s deal with the grip for the fore-hand stroke. Your hand and fingers should lie rather along than across the handle, if you know what I mean. Perhaps it will make it clearer if I say that, holding your racket with your arm at full stretch, the racket should be in a straight line with your arm.

Don’t trv to get it quite in a straight 1 line if you feel it cramps your wrist. You must be able to wave it backwards and" forwards, with the greatest freedom, without any suspicion, of eramp. Let the leather, on the handle, rest, not in the middle of the hand, tnit where'the wrist joins the hand. You must not let it get in the way of course, but that is about the place for it. There is no need for you, just yet, to go and practice on a court. Practising aiming at a ball—an imaginary ball that is—with your arm. at full stretch. To do this you must stand, sideways to the ball. There is hardly a. shot in lawn tennis which you play facing the net—that is, with your shoulders square on to the net. Stand sideways, with your left foot pointing in the direction in which you wish the ball to go, and your weight on your right foot. As vou hit. follow through—l shall, have

a lot more to say about that later on—and transfer the’weight to the left foot, so as to get the whole of the body into the stroke. D’yoti see what I mean? Well, that’s enough to go on with for the moment. Mind, racket in line with arm, arm at. full stretch, follow’ through, and feel that you are getting the weight of your body as well as the force of your wrist and arm, into the shot. Never mind about the back hand stroke yet. That’ll come later.

THAT BUGBEAR—THE BACKHAND STROKE. Now if you arc begining to feel, that when you do go on a court, you may be able to hit a ball with what we call the fore-hand stroke, I want you to make an experiment, just to satisfy yourself. I want you to feci what’s wrong, and what’s right with the various strokes. Hold your racket just as you have been doing. Only now turn with your right side facing the supposed net, instead of the left. Suppost a ball is coming at you which you must play back hand. Make a sweep of it, without altering your grip. Doesn’t feel the same, does it? You haven’t got any power behind the shot have you? It's'just a wave of the racket. instead of a stroke with force behind it. Exactly! Now this back-hand stroke is very difficult to describe in mere words, so I must ask you to read carefully. Keep your grip just as it is and rest the splice of the racket—that's the triangular bit between the handle and the frame —on your left hand. I want the face of the racket to be at right angles with the ground, facing the net. Now slide your right hand backwards, a quarter of the way round the racket. Alter the position of your thumb so that it lies along the back of the handle, and you have the back hand grip as it ought to be used. Now I want to get this absolutely right, so I will describe it another way. Stretch your right arm out, straight in front of you, with the palm facing the ground. Now draw your arm in, keeping the forearm, wrist and hand, straight out, with your clboM- to your side. Your left hand is holding the racket by the splice, at right angles to the ground. IMace the handle of the racket in the right hand, with the thumb behind, and you have the back-hand grip. I hope that from these two descriptions you will be able to get an idea of what I mean, and you must do so before ever you go on a court. The back-hand is the weakness of ninetynine players out of a . hundred, and most of that weakness springs from the fact that they do not know how to hold their racket for the shot . ft' you have these two things up to now. I can assure you that you know, already, a good deal more about lawn tennis than most players do who have been at the game for years. It may all sound very simple. Lawn tennis looks simple, as I said, in the hands of experts. It is simple, as a matter of fact, if you will take the trouble to master the details. For it is the details that count in the? making of what wc call “good form.”