NEW BLOOD NEEDED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 70, 8 January 1947, Page 5

NEW BLOOD NEEDED

AUSTRALIAN DAVIS CUP TEAM VIEWS OF HARRY HOPMAN Australia does not appear to have a chance of winning the Davis Cup within the next five years, but she must begin immediately by - challenging in next year’s competition, states an article by Harry Hopman. Australia must start team building. She does not need a completely new team. If J. Bromwich is available next year he is the man Australia must build a team around, but any Davis Cup team should include Australia’s two best young players of 20 years or under. Two who appear certain of inclusion in the 1947 Cup team are 25-year-old D. W. Pails and 22-year-old G. A. Brown. Australia’s two leading young players are Frank Sedgman, a 19-year-old Victorian, and George Worthington, 18 years old, of New South Wales. The Australian team should be selected with the twofold object of trying to win back the cup immediately and of giving young players much-needed international experience. Tennis overseas is enjoying a great postwar revival, and there would be a great demand in Europe and America to see Australian players in action.

The outlook does not appear to be bright even when I reflect that F. E. Schroeder might retire from international tennis when he returns to America and that J. A. Kramer might turn professional in a year or two. I know what a champion 2-year-old Tom Brown can be when in form and that Bob Falkenburg, two years his junior, is already a first-class international player of the aggressive type. Bromwich will still be Australia’s best bet next year. Apart from having to carry most of the strain of our defence this year, he lacked .the right type of tournament practice. He could not stand up to the bustling type of attacking game Schroeder played for the reason that he was too unaccustomed to it. The A. K. Quist —Bromwich combination might be. able to play itself back to near its best form on good tournament play, but I would prefer not to take the risk with the old firm and would rather see a- new young combination tried. Colin Long, at 28, might be just too old to come into the rebuilding scheme. He has, however, shown a lot of improvement this season and may yet develop into Davis Cup doubles class.'

Pails may yet make a champion, but he must learn the necessity of adding an attacking game to his present type of play.

G. A. Brown must be sent. In spite of his failures here this season, I have a lot of confidence in his lability to rise out of the ruck. He showed at Wimbledon that he has some of the “killer” instinct we want in Australian tennis.