TO-DAY’S TENNIS HINTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18208, 15 July 1927, Page 12

TO-DAY’S TENNIS HINTS.

SMASHING. Of all the strokes in lawn tennis there can hardly be one which is a more valuable

asset than the smash. The secret c£ good smashing, as the name implies, is to kill the ball outright. Tentative hitting is worse than useless. Cultivate smashing at a sharp angle / to the left and right, using the wrist for this. Watch nothing but the ball, and practice running backwards.

A similar action is used as for the service, and the ball must be hit at the top of the reach, but not so fat forward as in the service. A good way to improve your smashing is to get someone to lob the ball to you for ten minutes on end. Hit fearlessly, and don’t mind if your first attempts are erratic. Smash out rather than into thc net. x k OLYPIC GAMES IN DANGER. Commenting on thc speech of thc president of the International Olympic Committee at the Monaco conference in April the French journal “L’Auto,” utters a note of warning. The International Sports Federations have agreed to a truce, but this.is valid only for the Games of 1928. As soon as the 1928 Games are over the question of the administration of the International Federations to thc International Olympic Committee will again arise. “It will be necessary for the Olympic Committee to reply otherwise than with a refusal,” remarks “L’Auto,” “unless the cycle of modern Olympic Games is to close at Amsterdam next year.” Betty Has No Sweetheart. Betty Nuthall laughingly shook her head when a Pressman at Wimbledon •asked her whether she had a sweetheart. “ What sort of girl is this Betty Nuthall?” asks Mr S. N. Doust, thc Australian, writing in the “ Daily Mail.” He himself answers the ques tion. “ I have known her,” he says, “since she stood the height of a tennis net. She is as -sweet and as unspoilt as she •was then. She has grown so powerful and robust in merely a few seasons that few- men can get thc same force into their forehand drives as she docs. “ Her unspoilt, natural self-posses-sion is her chief asset in match-win-ning. She plays on the centre court at Wimbledon with the same self possession as she show on her own lawn. She docs not possess a single temperamental trick or pose, except, screwing up her tongue w hen making a difficult shot. This only adds to the charm of a mischievous face. “ Though Betty las left school she still has a governess. She teases her brothers, but they lake care that she is not spoilt.” “Athletes Not Criminals.” Colonel Amos W. W. Woodcock, United States District Attorney, Baltimore, who has prosecuted more than 4000 violators of the statutes, asserts that he does not recall a single instance among the offenders when the body gave any evidence of its having been systematically developed. “On the other hand,” he says, “and this is almost a truism, the criminal type is the stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested youth whose mind is apparently as unwholesome as his body.” The fact that Admiral Percy Royds, thc old international, is to succeed Mr James Baxter as President of the Rugby Union is a source of satisfaction to the Dominion Unions (says London “Sporting Life.’’) They believe that the new president is a man of broad views similar to those of Mr Baxter, on the all-important question of Dominion representation in the government of the game, and to them this means everything. The strong action taken by the ex-president and the ultimatum he threw’ down to dissenting unions will, they believe, be so followed up by Admiral Royds that the necessary recognition of the claims of New Zealand, New South Wales, and South Africa will soon be an accomplished fact-