LAWN TENNIS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18673, 30 January 1929, Page 12

LAWN TENNIS

NEWS FROM ALL THE COURTS.

By

R. LLMAN.

Tka Vhi Oeut ChampioniUpsEmerson once said that every msti tution is the monument of a great mam West Coast tennis is a monument to J 'l;'* „dit of Mr F. T. Dennehy, presidwtTthc tov Tennis Club and main- : stay of the West Coast Tennis .Associa- ( ‘ • ' thf> last dav ot this } ear s championships, at Hokitika, the biggest : crowfthat had ever gathered to -watch team's turned up at the Grey c ? u * s j tot the finals of the West Coast charm ISipr It seems as though Mr Dennehy’s efforts, to popularise the game on the Coast are at last to be I *MUs*D. Scott, of the Opawa Club, Christchurch, and now of the Otago University, reached the finals, playing tennis that pleased everyone. In the final she went down to W ellington s fourth plaver. Miss M. Williams but .Hiss Scott and Miss Reed (also of the Ottawa Club), are finalists for the ladies singles handicap. This will be played off at the Opawa Club s courts in the seer future. , , Miss Reed, with H. L. Wise, of the Addington and United Clubs, won the combined doubles handicap. Wise reached the semi-final of the men s championship singles and played a great game. He attacked T. S. W llliams (■the ultimate winner) from the start, but the Wellington man’s steadiness won out. Williams is about tenth on the W T ellington ladder. _As we „.‘ lS being runner-up in the singles, Miss Stott, with McCarthy, a Coast player, reached the final of the combined championship. Miss Scott was runner-up to Miss Miller in the University championships at Wellington last year, and she is now playing a splendid game. She defeated last year s holder of the West Coast ladies’ singles championship, Miss Moore, with perfect backhand and forehand driving. to E. Partridge, a frequent s is'for Christchurch, and one time member o the Paparua Tennis Club, P la > e 4 h .‘n usual game. There was no one else in the tournament so well worth while watching. His strokes are made grace<U A player who would delight Wilding Park benches is Warnes, a W est Coast plas-er. He has moments of inspired brilliancy. .« 35 » •> A Hovel Volley Board. The vollev board of the Grey Tennis Club is, as the illustration shows, something out of the ordinary. Mr Dennehv, the designer of the board, is a great tennis enthusiast. He has studied the game and nothing delights him more than to improve the game of voung plavers. A volley board with directions explaining how various shots should be played is h.s method of grounding young people in the rudi

ments of the game. . , , . te In a number of details the board is w different from any other. It is made of silver pine, an everlasting wood, in the next place the boards are one and a half inches thick, so the ball bounces back just as it would off a plastered wall. The third detail and most Important one, is the writing. “Keep vour eye on the ball, isthe g« most important rule in tennis, Mr Den g riehy considers. He has placed it on p the board three times. It ,s the h'® sacret of the good tennis, the designer C<? The' < next rule is "Play sideways to s< not ” This is the rule for good S footwork. Left foot to the net for a N forehand; right foot forward for a back- h h *Another rule is "Commence back b swing while ball is in flight, Mr Den- y nehy considers that the back swing wilk a be far too short if the backward move- n ment of the swing does not. start till j, the ball hits- the court. tl The next rule is to stop playing the , c ball off the back foot. Commence the t , forward swing as the ball touches the ground ” he says. This aso ensures rimt the ball is played early and not c allowed to drop too much. The tell v must be returned quickly, and he naa p added: “Hit at the top of the b ? un ,? e - d Cramped play is one of the hardest y faults to eradicate, in Mr Dehnehy s opinion. Therefore he has for the next rule: “Hit at arms length To reacti d out for the ball is good advice. 0 His next rule, “Follow through to the limit of the swing.” is to secure that V rare thing, a good follow-through. The rafcquet must not slice across the ball The racquet must follow the departing ball if perfect control is to be aC The last rule, "Shift body-weight for- s ward into the ball.’’ is to teach that a most important lesson that controlled r speed can onlv come when, with locked t shoulder, arm and wrist, the body e weight is transferred to the ball. 1 t Mr S. P. England, the Australian c coach, irrform.rd a representative of £ the Auckland “Herald that he w&s 1 •greatlv impressed with the style ot E. j X. Bartleet, the singles champiort. tie ‘played his shots, both forehand and backhand, beautifully, and his timing was perfect. His greatest weakness was his low volley, just below the net. £ -Bartleet’s side-line and cross-court driv- • ing were splendid. Mr England added he would like to see the New Zea- ] land champion playing against some of the leading Australian exponents, because he would then become a bet- * ter player than ever. The visitor was also impressed with C. E. Malfroy's play, though he says if the Wellington player desires to improve .he will have to delete his present twisting service for a straight, fast service by throwing the ball on the right side of the head. It is all right to have a Varying service, but Brookes and other players found it necessary to cut out the excessive twist. If Malfroy improved his service he would very soon win the New Zealand championship. Miss Marjorie Macfarlane. the winner of the New Zealand ladies’ singles championship, has dominated Auckland ladies’ tennis since 1924, and since then has been Auckland’s chief hope in Dominion events (says the “New Zealand Herald ”). She first reached .*h« final of the New Zealand championships in 1919, when she was defeated by Mrs S. C. Hodges, 6-1. 6-1. In 1920 and 1921 she lost to Miss N. < '.urtis. the second occasion being in the final. In 1922. which would quite likely have been her year, the Australian "ladies’ team was in New Zealand, and Miss Lance carried off the title. In 1923 she was beaten by Miss J .M'Laren. In 1924 she defeated Miss and again reached the final, onlv to lose to Mrs Melodv after three close sets. In 1925 she was defeated •by Mrs Scott (nee Miss M’Laren). In 1936 she was in England, but returned to the attack in 1927. reached the final, and after a tremendous struggle lost to Miss May Speirs at 3-6, 13-11, 5-7. 35 35 •* Two Famous Rivals. Some of the young people of to-day will have difficulty in realising how keen and general was public interest in Tilden and Johnston half a dozen yoors ago, and the with which controversy regarding their superiority or inferiority raged. Half a dozen years before 1922 (says “American Lawn Tennis”), it was Johnston and Williams who were the two great antagonists: just as. shortly before that, it was M’Loughlin and Williams and

Johnston who occupied the centre of the stage. Johnston re-entered tournament competition in 1919 and won the American championship for the second time. His opponent in the final round was Tilden, then just entering upon the career that placed him on the heights; and the Californian's win was decisive, Tilden failing to win a seat. In 1920 the two men played their memorable five-set match at Forest Hills, which made Tilden champion, a match witnessed bv more than 12.000 people and marked by thrills from start to finish, including the fall of an aeroplane just after it had sailed across the court, with resultant fatalities almost iri sight of the plavers and gallert- Then the scene shifted to Germantown in 1921, and in the fourth round Tilden beat Johnston, the latter winning the first set and carrying the second to 7-5. The most remarkable of the championship battles of these two men was waged in 1922. The seeding system had become effective, and Tilden and Johnston were drawn in opposite halves. They met in the final round, before 12,000 people, and Johnston, playing beautiful tennis, won the first two sets. Tilden won the third set, but Johnston obtained a lead of 3-0

in the fourth. Tilden won it, and also the fifth set, the complete score being 4-6, 3-6, 6-2. 6-3, 6-4. It is doubtful whether there was ever a match more bitterly fought than this one, and as to the spectators, they were divided into Tilden and Johnston partisans, and sat so tense and anxious that many, myself among them, lost sight of the play as play and gave chief attention to the result. Tilden’s win, from an almost impossible position, swung general opinion to his side as the greater match player.

Notes from the Championships. H. A. Barnett won the final of the boys’ championship very easily on. Tuesday, but it was one of the best junior singles imaginable. M'Gibbon serves a fast ball, pitched right on the

service line, and also drives wonderfully well. Barnett tangled him up with service at the beginning, until M’Gibbon settled down to chopping it back, and the New Zealand champion also scored a lot of points on headwork. He is clearly the best junior we have had for years, but M’Gibbon may prove equally brilliant if he gets into the right hands. Clearly the association might do something for these boys by securing coaching from Geoffrey Ollivier. 35 « 35

In a chat at Wilding Park yesterday Barnett was asked where he learned his tennis, and he replied: “In Mid-Can-terbury.” First he played at Tinwald, where there was nothing very brilliant, and then he played a bit on the grass at Ashburton, where he won an under-twenty-one competition and a handicap singles. He is entirely self-taught and has had no coaching whatever since coming to Christchurch. Charlie Angas gave him a singles the other day, but generally speaking Barnett has been playing in company a little too far below himself to. be advantageous.

The final of the girls’ singles saw some very fine driving both by Miss Sherris, the winner, and Miss Poole. Miss Poole never runs round her backhand, and seems rather to favour it, which is unusual. She .serves a little better than Miss Sherris, but does not yet use her head sufficiently. She lost a great many points in the final by running into a short ball and driving it just as hard as she would drive from the baseline. In this way she put a lot of balls well out. Neither of these two girls can volley yet.

Once again for the sake of finishing championships within a given time, a very great injustice has been done to players. Both Misses Wake and Andrew had to play four hard matches yesterday—two of them finals in Miss Wake’s case. This is an utter absurdity, and does not allow the ladies to do themselves justice. At the very outside, no lady should be asked to play more than two important matches in a day, and we doubt whether anybody of either sex should be asked to play two finals in one day.

G. Ollivier’s umpiring was a bright spot at the tournament. It is probable that every umpire will make some mistakes, but Ollivier’s are pretty near the-possible minimum. What the players and the public like about him is the promptness of his. decisions and the fact that everybody in the stands can hear the state of the game at every call. There were at least two umpires at this tournament who were distinctly below par, and some very bad decisions were given by both of them. 35 35 35 Talking of umpires it is regrettable that very few of the ranking matches or United championships matches are now able to secure umpires although it ought to be absolutely compulsory for a ranking challenge to be umpired. The United Club has a tennis committee which had one meeting immediately after the annual meeting in September, but has not been called together since. 'At ! that meeting it decided to order a couple of umpire's stands but they have not come to hand yet. When they do, there will be no difficulty in obtaining umpires for important matches.

Perhaps the most talked about point in the men’s doubles at the Canterbury Championships was Boddy’s improving form in the final. He’came right on to his game overhead just when he was wanted, although he his had a bit of a lapse in this direction all the season. Boddy has been transferred to Dunedin and he left for the south immediately after winning the title with Angas. X 35 35 Angas is making steady improvement in the variety of his shots, and he volleys* a little more crisply than ever and with just enough chop to make it extremely difficult for his opponent. This improvement is shown both forehand and backhand—and it was his backhand volleying that was most at fault in Auckland. Ollivier thought that the drop shot should have been exploited once or twice at least in the singles final, and until Angas is a maste.' of that shot, which is one of Ollivier’s favourites, he will be without a very useful point winner. Still, j he ought not to be criticised for his game in the finals, as he gave Patterson no chance .whatever. It will be very interesting when Seay gets back to singles form to see whether he will maintain his old ascendancy against Angas. How Miss Wake managed to lob Seay’s reverse American service so successfully in the final of the combined championship was a bit of a mystery. It is a ball that does not lend itself to lobbing, as it is spinning all over the place, and at the ton of its flight looks rfiore like an egg than a tennis ball. Miss Wake played wonderfully well in this final, and passed Seay twice by brilliant anticipation. If Sheppard had not missed a good many sitters, the

matcfi would certainly have gone to three sets, even if the result had been the same. Seay was the dominant figure in the combined in every round as he was,so. deadly overhead. He is also very quick in anticipating the moves of the doubles game and some of his’ anticipation has been sensational. Seay, who is a left-hander, played in the right court with Miss Andrew, and this gave them their forehands down the centre, which is really the best formation with a left-hander playing, especially if the right-hander, like Miss Andrew, is quite sound on the backhand. Miss Andrew’s backhand returns of service were admirable. She kept the ball well away from Sheppard, and at a very critical point at the end of the match she passed him down the sideline as he rushed across to the centre. When Miss Wake, after losing the first three games against Miss Speirs, collected the next three on stubborn driving, a good many spectators asked themselves whether the collapse of the champion was possible. The reply was forthcoming w T hen Miss Speirs took the next eight games. At that stage she was playing at the top of her form, using all of her battery of shots with confidence and precision, and particularly exploiting a fast drive of a rising ball to Miss Wake’s open forehand court. This is a Shot that Mfss Speirs has not exploited sufficiently in any match, preferring rather to drive her way to victory by a persistent attack to the backhand. Miss Wake played very gamely, but happened to strike Miss Speirs once again at the top of her form. 35 35 A Brilliant Frenchman.

France has developed another tennis champion in Robert Ramillion, a nine-teen-year-old lad, who recently won the world’s professional championship. The event took place at the Queen’s Club, London, and though both Kozeluh and Vincent Richards were missing from the list of contestants, general opinion among those who had seen the Czech and the Yankee iri action this season was that they would have had little chance with the brilliant young Frenchman. 35 X 15 Professionalism? The trend to professionalism, which is such a feature of amateur games in Australia—and elsewhere, for that matter—was hinted at in a letter discussed at a recent meeting of the Victorian tennis authorities (says the Sydney “Bulletin”). It was from a New South Wales player and touched on the matter of expenses. There is only 1 one rule 'on the subject. Apart from travelling and housing expenses an 1 amateur player may not be paid more i than 5s per‘day in cash. Further, he must himself supply the clothing and > implements necessary for the game he ' may be engaged in, save, of course, i such accessories as tennis or cricket 5 balls. It is notorious that a very different condition of things prevails in

first-class tennis. The French Lawn Tennis Federation has resolved that amateurs who have turned professional may be re-admitted to the lilywhite ranks on application, provided they give an undertaking not to repeat the' offence for which they were disqualified. This will leave the door open for the once-mighty Suzanne, if that, haughty and temperamental person condescends -to avail herself of it. Paul Feret, who was thrown into outer darkness at the same time as Mile Lenglen, is said to have applied for reinstatement.