LAWN TENNIS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 230, 29 September 1931, Page 5

LAWN TENNIS

WANGANUI EAST CLUB APPROACH OF NEW SEASON. With the approach of the 1931-32 lawn tennis season, the Wanganui East Club is busy preparing its grounds, and the surroundings are being dug and planted. Mr F. J. Walker, the ciub’s patron, is donating some hundreds of Sunbeam Iceland poppy plants, which should be a glorious sight when in full bloom in two or three months. The new mower is doing good work ana given suitable weather conditions, the committee hopes to fix the date of opening shortly, possibly October 10 or 17. A working bee was busy last Saturday and a larger number is called for during next week-end, as there is plenty of work for all-comers. Afternoon tea will be served by the ladies. Nominations are ’coming in freely, the subscription being a fairly low one for such a largo club. An additional asset is the fact that the club supplies balls. This item is a big saving, especially for keen players, who appreciate new balls each week. Nomination forms may be obtained through committee members. JAPANESE TEAM NO VISIT TO DOMINION. SOUTH AFRICAN ARRANGEMENT. There will be no visit of a Japanese lawn tennis team to New Zealand this year. Great hope was held that an, arrangement would be made this year, as Australia wanted the team for only a limited time. The proposed team was to include Harada, once ranked as fourth player in the world, the Japanese champion, J. Sato, and the young player, Inouye. However, private advice received at Wellington indicates that the team will not now be making the trip to the (Dominion. The factor which has caused the failure of New Zealand’s efforts is the unexpected entry of the field by the South African tennis authorities, who have seized the opportunity to dovetail with the Australians’ arrangements for the present Japanese team. It is understood that they offered the Japanese Lawn Tennis Association £BOO for a visit and also offered to pay the team’s expenses there. This suggestion has met with Japanese approval and will fit in with the team’s plans, as it wil' make its way through South Africa to England in time to play in the Davis Cup matches there next year.

LEFT “IN THE AIR” WOMEN’S SINGLES FINAL PROBLEM FOR AUTHORITIES Those persons who have been maintaining that there is “nothing new under the sun’’ will have to reconsider, at least &o far as the game of lawn tennis is concerned, for two English women sprang a new Idea in the eastern turf court championship tournament at Rye, New York, recently, when they decided to withdraw from the final round of the women’s singles after each had won a set, writes an American critic of the game. This, so far as can be recalled, is the first time such a situation has arisen in United States Lawn Tennis Association circles and, to say the least, it had the tournament officials very much “in the air.” After the referee had found it impossible to get Miss Joan Ridley and Mrs Elsie Goldsack Plttbian to continue the match in order that there might be a champion for 1931, the question arose as to just how to settle the affair. As neither would withdraw alone, it was impossible to default one and declare the other the champion, and as defaulting both would not settle the issue, it was necessary to establish some kind of a precedent. The decision so far is that no championship name will be engraved on the trophy, and first and second prizes have been given to the two players to divide as they see fit.

Clearly, both women believed they were showing fine sportsmanship in declining to try to defeat each other. But there* are other questions involved which are worthy of consideration and which will probably result in some kind of a rule being made by the tennis authorities to govern such a situation. Ono asks, What about the rights of the spectator who has paid his money to see the final match?

Another, more delicate, one is, Does refusing to play represent the highest sportsmanship? To many it will seem that the essence of sportsmanship lies in a willingness to let the best man—or woman—win, to “play the game” fairly, but for all it is worth, with emphasis on the playing rather than the winning. In this case, by refusing to defeat each other, the contestants put the emphasis—unconsciously perhaps—on victory.