TO TENNIS PLAYERS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14742, 22 October 1915, Page 8

TO TENNIS PLAYERS.

INTERNATIONAL GAMES. APPEAL FOR RECRUITS. Somebody in Sydney wrote to an Australian officer in the (Gallipoli campaign about, the godek lawn tennis he. was having. The officer, wild had already seen service in the Boer War, wrote the following in reply which may prove of interest to’ some of our local tennis players: > ... ' “Gallipoli Peninsula(Dear Bill, —Yours of the Ilth May to hand." Pleased..to hear from you, and-that you are- having a good time with tennis, etc. , -“Sunday, the 25th April, we have been playing im toe Doubles Championship of the World. The teams are Gorman and-Turk-v, British and French. The courts here are Very rough, and we find that the , best game is smashing up close to the '■ nets.. . ■ “on‘ those occasions -we find Turk up against .us, with his partner on the back line,-where he plays a very good game, being full of many wise maxims of the game- . “Their services are very hard to take ; one they call ‘Shrapnel’ is bad, but not so' bad as it looks; another,- known as ‘Dum Dum,’ is a fair horror to take, and if you do take, you never score; far better .to let it go out of the court dtogether. “But their -most, territying; service is one which comes down very steeply, I believe they call it ‘aerial bomb;’ "it is very-difficult to return. “Of course we have some good strokes ip our possession, and are putting up a real good go, and, if-toe onlookers give us some good backing, will win. Our best stroke is called ‘The Bayonet,’ or by some ‘The-Pig-sticker; ’ is has never failed; -ns yet,; but before- delivering it you 'toist-know exactly where your opponent is-,' and to succeed he must, be on the net. “The game is played day and night, never a spell; and many of our best players have fallen by the way, and many more will before'‘game’ is called. “. . . - Don’t know if they give • you our casualties correctly, and the censor won’t let me tell you; but they will make you store. Was wounded in the left shoulder on Mav lOtli, and through that bloody, scrap I got my promotion, “It was Hell let loose while it lasted. Mr Turk won’t forget the 15th—Queenslanders anil Tassies-r-in a hurry, for wc got into him; wjth the steel, and those who did' not hodk it ■ were just stuck like pigs.. - “War is a damned dirty business, and tote of us like it;- but are'determined to see it through. . Ask yourself and all your male friends, in between tennis, girls, and motor ridee, what you and they are doing to push - this, thing through. Are you and they thinking about it seriously? Every, tit man who is not making war, goods or tilling the soil should be here’: think it over. “Probably long ere you get this I shall be knocked out; it is too devilish hot to last, and I expect to go any day.”