PLAYED TENNIS IN BARE FEET.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18615, 17 November 1928, Page 7

PLAYED TENNIS IN BARE FEET.

CZECH PROFESSIONAL AMUSES SPECTATORS.

For the first time since 1919 the colours of Karel Kozeluh, of Czechoslovakia were lowered in defeat on September 29, and the United States salvaged one big championship title from the year’s wreckage and disaster a* the tennis season came to a close at Forest Hills. In the final round of the first national tournament staged by the Professional Lawn Tennis Association of America, Vincent Richards of New York, playing as magnificent tennis as he ever displayed in his amateur days, defeated Kozeluh at 8-6, 6-3, 0-6, 6-2, thereby reversing the results of his previous three matches with the Czechoslovakian at Prague, London and New Y ork.

In view of the fact that Kozeluh holds the European title and had beaten the ablest players of Europe for almost ten years, the New York youth may justly lay claim to the world’s professional title by virtue of his triumph, the climax of a week of play in which twenty-eight other representatives of all sectors of the country were entered. It is not overstating it to say that such tennis as Richards played was good enough to have carried him to the world’s championship without anylimiting qualification of professional. N o gallery in America in recent years looked upon so astonishing an exhibition of volleying overhead smashing as the young New Yorker put on for the edification of the 800 spectators huddled in the rain-soaked stadium of the West Side Tennis Club. In justice to Kozeluh it must be said that he was under a handicap in the wet turf. He did not have spikes, as did Richards, and from the third game on he played in his stockings, discarding his rubber shoes. In the fourth set the Czech, desperate with his sensing of his impending doom, did something never seen before in the Forest Hills Stadium. Unable to maintain contact with the elusive stroke of Richards, he pulled off his socks and played in his bare feet for an entire game until a whole box of socks was brought out. While the gallery looked on with amusement he pulled out pair after pair, throwing them into the air helter skelter until he found ones that were to his size and liking. But in shoes, socks or his bare feet Kozeluh was equally unable to close up the gaps in his court and maintain connection with the ball, and it is to be doubted whether he would have been able to do any better had he worn spiked shoes, with which he is unfamiliar.