NEW ZEALAND HAS SOME PROMISING TENNIS PLAYERS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19267, 2 January 1931, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND HAS SOME PROMISING TENNIS PLAYERS

But Tournament Shows Many Weaknesses In Equipment. (Written for the “ Star.”) THE forty-first annual championship meeting of the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association has passed, and now for the forty-first time eleven crowns grace new heads. That was the primary object of the tournament, to find out, in the acid test of match play, who were best entitled to be acclaimed champions in their grade. For the diligent student, however, there were many other things to be learnt from such a tournament. The most outstanding of these was that for a young and virile country, in which more and more young people are coming to adopt the racquet game as their favourite sport, the standard of play, generally, was lamentably low.

For this there are many explanations, none of them entirely satisfactory. One prominent player remarked the other day, “what is wanted are more tournaments and less ranking matches.” There is some truth in this, for certainly the ranking list system is rather clogging to the rising j'oung player, who may reach the heights almost overnight, as H. A. Barnett did in a tournament. But associations cannot always be holding tourneys, and ranking lists are a big aid in picking representative teams. They should not, however, be allowed to bar the way for any young players whose form and promise mark him as worthy of a trial in the province's team. Canterbury and New Zealand have many promising young players who need only the experience of big match play to give them the confidence in their own strength which is so big a part of the champion's equipment. A Good Result. The senior men's competition inaugurated by the Canterbury Association last season has already had good results in that direction and the performance of many of our “colts” in the national tourney holds rosy hopes for the future of the game in this province. Not for a long time has Canterbury had such a string of good class young players, and they have all come forward in the past two years. H. A. Barnett. A. R. Cant, H. Dymond, H. S. P. Andrews and J. R. Crawshaw are only a few of the younger players whose form during the past year has shown a surprising improvement. As it is with Canterbury so it probably is with the other provinces. A. C. Stedman (Auckland), the new champion. and N. R. C. Wilson (Wellington) are two players whose brilliancy is not to be denied, while Malfroy and others are doing very well overseas. Juniors Promise Less. Lower down the age scale the view is less promising, however. With the possible exception of X. Davys, of Wellington. there was hardly a player of class in the junior division. The fault lies in the schools, where to a large extent tennis is regarded as not being in the best interests of team spirit, which is the standard by which most schools sports are judged. This is partly true, but it is lack of early training which is largely responsible. There is as much team work in good doubles play as in any sport, and its other qualities place it well in the front rank. It takes perfect physical fitness to last out fifty hard, games going at top. as Stedman and Angas did in their match on Tuesday, and the coolness

A Golf Incident. Queensland has furnished another queer golf happening. A hard-driven ball hit a near-by tree and disappeared. Later the striker found the pill in one of his pockets. The question arises what should he do? If it had been, someone else’s, and a good one, the obvious course would have been to sneak away without saying anything. As things were, all depends on whether he was playing match or stroke golf. If the former, he lost the hole' if the latter, one stroke only. The question of carrying on arises in the latter event. Where should he drop the new pill? There is no definite law on the subject, and so the pundits are hard at it. It is obviously impossible for a player in his plight to play from the place where the ball hit the tree-trunk, or to drop the new pill into the pocket where the old one was reposing. The suggestion of one enthusiast has its points. That the player should continue his march to the green with the old ball in his pocket, and drop the new one in the hole. Test Match Rhyme. Fifty years ago London “ Punch ” cele brated the first England v. Australia cricket match on English soil in a piece of rather memorable, if rugged, rhyme, which some people attributed to Clement Scott. Most of the combatants got a line or two, as warriors might have done in a Homeric battle. One couplet. addressed to the opening English batsmen before the bard warmed to his narrative work, ran as follows: Blackham at, wicket. Slight at point, test nerves of sternest stuff; And think not, if ye sky or spoon, that Groube or Motile will muff. Curiously enough, this particular four, all Victorians, were destined to outlive almost all their comrades. Groube died three years ago and James Slight died last week, leaving Blackham and Motile the only two survivors of Murdoch’s team of ISBO. ■Should Go Far. Fifteen-year-old Jim Ferrier. who plays for the Manly (X.S.W.) Club, of which his dad is secretary, should scale the highest heights # of Australian golf. A foot injury prevents him playing in other field games, with the result that he has been able to concentrate on the one. For the second year in succession he has won the Manly Summer Cup. and each time the field has included the cream of Sydney's amateurs. Ferrier finished with a card of 73, with Brie Apperly. a former winner of Australian and State amateur championships, a stroke behind in second place. Course bogey and standard scratch at Manly is 77. Mr H. D. Swan, of the M.C.C., coming out in the Ruahine to consult 1 with the Dominion authorities on the programme and other arrangements for the coming New Zealand tour in England, managed an English team in New Zealand some years back and has since been among other things, ambassador of New Zealand at the court of King Marylebone. Mr Swan, who is allied with Essex County, will spend a month in New Zealand and then hie home in advance of the New Zealand team.

and judgment demanded of a good tennis player, and the gameness shown by Barnett in his matches during the tournament are all qualities worthy of attainment. Lessons to be Learned. The bad temper shown by one young player who, when he missed an important point in a match during the tourny, flung his racquet down in disgust, is one of the things which a good school training would never allow. Tommy Patterson takes everything with a grin, and his play does not lose anything by it. Patterson, incidentally, was one of the most unlucky players in the tournament. He got to the fourth round of the singles, and was beaten by Stedman only after four sets: to the third round in the men’s doubles with Dr Allison, only to be beaten by the France brothers in five sets: and to the third round of the combineds with Miss E. Johnston to be beaten bv Miss Andrew and Seay after a hard three sets. Tommy still smiled, however. Some of the players might well learn a lesson from him. The tournament offered two other models in I. A. Seay and A. C. Stedman. The first has the best stroke equipment in New Zealand, the second physical fitness and determination. Seay has a new attack for very situation, and his variety of service and general array of strokes gave his play an attractiveness possessed by practically none of the other competitors, whose play for the most part was of the orthodox variety. Until others of the Dominion’s players with greater physical strength than Seay can equal him in stroke-play New Zealand will never produce another Anthony Wilding. Women’s Sections. The women's sections were amongst the poor features of the tournament. Even the finals did not produce any real championship play. Mrs Dykes won because she was of the championship class, but her lack of strength would have been her downfall had she met any player of real quality. The general improvement of the net play in doubles events was a good feature, but for the most part it was a matter of baseline driving with practically no variation in stroke play. There is no reason why a woman should not have at least two services for use as a surprise attack, and be a little more enterprising generally. Still there are one or two players coming on, and with sports mistresses attached to a number of the bigger colleges, it is possible that there will be an improvement in this branch shortly. A tightening up of the women’s senior competition might have a good effect.

gS HI E*3 M II M ®SB EE3II SI SI ®ISI!UE Si SI Seems Incredible. America has been a land overflowing with milk and honey to the Scottish professional golfer, poorly rewarded for his skill even nowadays. hen it was bruited in the Land o' Cakes, some 20 years ago, that golf was becoming popular in America among people who never bit their money when taking change, an invasion began which soon swelled to a rush that Ellis Island was helpless to cope with. A great proportion of the leading American professionals of to-day are Scots, and one of the most prominent is “ Bobby ” Cruickshank, who is going to Australia next year with Joe Kirkwood and Mehlhorn. He is a finished shotmaker, but is accused of refusing to take the game seriously, which seems incredible in a Scot. Nevertheless, he is in the first flight; in 1927 he tied with the redoubtable Bobby Jones in the American open championship, the impeturbable Georg ian winning the play off. Si mu S 3 in M M ® ig ® ffl ES Hill ®I3 SI HE §E

BULL-FIGHTING SLUMP. Promoters and followers of the fine old Spanish sport of bull-fight-ing - are in despair, for their game is slipping badly in public estimation, rings that once hung out the “ House Full ” sign weekly having now to paper the house heavily to keep the temperamental matador placated. New stunts such as mounting the matador on horseback or a motor-cycle have failed to arouse enthusiasm, and hundreds of leading performers are joining the ranks of the unemployed, to say nothing of the bulls. Rugby and Soccer football are the counterattractions, and many a famous bull-ring is now converted to such base uses. mmssmmmmmm® m m @ @ m m m m m 5

An Anomaly. American golf professionals have recently been taking strong exception to Bobby Jones's activities as a golf writer. The champion is credited with drawing thousands sterling a year from his syndicated articles, and the pros, claim that many attempt to learn their game from these, instead of going to a professional for instruction, it is difficult to see any grounds for objection, for if the idea of the disgruntled ones were to be carried to its logical conclusion everyone who had written a book on golf would be a veiled professional. At the same time it seems an anomaly that a man should be a professional if he writes articles on tennis for money, but remains an amateur if he confines his lucubrations to golf, cricket, or even snakes and ladders. It will be many years before spectators are treated to such a display of running between the wickets as that given by M. L. Page and R. O. Talbot in the final day’s play of the Plunket Shield match against Auckland. The pair kept the crowd on its toes —Talbot with his mighty hits and Page with the masterly placing of short strokes. The partnership put on 147 in remarkably short time, and provided the best of cricket. Page ended with a score of 58 and Talbot with 74, the second highest score.