LAWN TENNIS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 17, 27 April 1907, Page 23

LAWN TENNIS

By

WIMBLEDON

IN a very few weeks the law tennis season will have drawn to a elose. Already all the local championships have been decided, and that is a

fairly sure indication that the rainy weather is upon us. This being so it may not be unprofitable to review the work of the past season. Few who know the game will attempt to deny that, generally speaking, the class of lawn tennis is not high. Auckland, with her almost unrivalled cruising ground, has in yachting a most formidable competitor with lawn tennis. Added to this, the paucity of good accessible grounds must naturally tell against the game. This, however will no doubt be remedied in time, but we have, to deal with things as they are, not as we would have them.

The average of play in Auckland has, I think, improved, but the actual standard has clearly not advanced. The same old names are still in premier positions, where they should long ago have been replaced by those of the younger men. The Lawn Tennis Association is to some extent to blame for this. Its events are allowed to drag through the season in a most haphazard, go-as-you-please style, t. do not . think I have seen sneh a want of arrangement and management in any other place. There seems to be an entire absence of control. In the finals, at least, one, would expect to see a man on the base-lines. 1 have not seen such a thing as a base-line man in Auckland ibis season, and 1 have seen some severe eases of hardship through his .-.bsenee.

There is something radically wrong with our Lawn Tennis Association. What it is our players must try to think out for themselves. I asked a ' prominent lawn-tennis player some time ago if. he knew- who’ was on the executive body, and he confessed his ignoiahce. Now. many would say this was his fault, and there may be a little truth in that, too. but the fact is that the Association is not as it should be, composed of tha leading players in each club. Why is this? Is it that they won't be bothered with the position or is it that the various clubs don't know’ enough to send the most experienced men to represent them. I can perfectly well understand that people ‘may not want the trouble of attending to the local conduct of tha game, but it is the duty of every player who knows the game well to do his best to further its interests. 1 am afraid that clubs do not recognise their duty fully in this matter. Let us, for instance, deal with soma of the players who are not on the Association this year. It is somewhat funny to say the least of it, to see in. Auckland it committee from whose roll such names os Keith, Grossmann, Upton and C. Heather; are absent. This may. of course. b? as much the fault of those mentioned as of the clubs. I don't know whose fault it is, and I am not concerned with that. I know the game wants those who know most about it, to guide it and improve it, and under the present regime things are certainly dodging along in a very slack manner. In the president of the Association we have an enthusiast-, who has the game at heart, and in-the secre-tary-we’have one w ho'does all that owe could expect from an honorary, officer, but it is time that things are ppi on a better footing, time that some effort is made to get out of the comatose condition. This of course, depends to a great extent on the clubs. There should be •ome endeavour to send men -who arc up-to-date in their ideas, and who know the game thoroughly, and it should be the object of the Association to extend its scope as much as possible in every way. Some of the Southern Associations have nearly thirty aflU'a ted clubs. Auckland has about seven or eight! Why is the game lagging*’thus! The answer in my opinion is simple. There is no life in the management; and not only is -there no life in it, but there is a spirit of narrowness that ought to be stamped out. I am referring now to the junior championships. These, as originally constituted were open championships for the

boys and girls of the provincial district. Later this was narrowed down to a secondary schools championships. This in itself shows a narrow feeling, but I am informed by an Onehunga delegate that this was done deliberately after he had mentioned that it would exclude public school and other children.

Now this is the narrowest and poorest of class spirit, and in a democratic country like ours should be wiped out at once. In a community’ of nobodies such as ours surely it is detrimental to the best interests of the game that we should allow such paltriness to creep in. It is only’ those who have never been far enough to discover their own utter insignificance who can think of such differences as these, and 1 am pleased to be able to say that I have the assurance of the President of the Association that he will do his best to reinstate the event as a provincial championship next year —and surely this is small enough even for a microscopic microcosm.

J have often referred to the weary dragging out of the championship events during the season. In the South they hold their ehampionship tournaments, and run the thing off smartly. There is ho such prolonging of the agony as there is here, and a young player in good condition gets some benefit from his youth and training, but under the Auckland regime he has not much advantage for his aged opponent - frequently for' a week or more to recuperate in. I know one ease in which a player who is slightly troubled with anno domini was a cripple for nearly a fortnight before his match. He was patched up, and put his youthful opponent out, but was “crocked” for a week. This kind of thing won't do for tournament play. Lawn tenhis is a strenuous athletic game, and it should be so regulated that the athlete gets his reward for the' self-denial and hard work lie phis in to get fit', and it should.not be reduced as much as possible to a go-as-you-please carnival as is done in Auckland. These are matters worthy’ of the consideration of clubs and the Association, and I hope that iny’ remarks will have the effort of awakening players to a realisation of the state of affairs in Auckland so that next season we may have a little more life and go in the game than there has been this season. Auckland does not generally lag behind in athletic matters, and I am sure that it only wants a little «merby and intelligence on the part of the Association, and we shall ore long again produce players equal to the Hooper-Parker period. There is no reason why we should not. We luive just as good material but they ■will not learn the strokes of the game. Nearly all the young players have too few strokes. Let us hope that these matters will all receive due consideration •—then next season will be a nierrv one.