WITHOUT WILDING!

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1330, 6 January 1912, Page 12

WITHOUT WILDING!

DAVIS CUP THOUGHTS. (Contributed.) It will ho peculiarly pleasing to many interested in tennis in Wellington, and probably elsewhere in New Zealand, that the l)avis Cup has been held—gloriously held—without the assislanco of Authony Wilding. Now that the Cup has been lost and won, one may write freely on tho Minewhat extraordinary action of tho New Zealauder in regard to tho big event. All tennis players will remember tho bitterness engendered over a year ago, when the New Zealand Association nominated Wellington as the place whero tho Cup matches should be played, After much,intrigue and a good deal of sparling, it was announced that Wilding would not play if the matches wero not played in Christchurch, and there is not the slightest doubt that this extraordinary decision on the part of tho champion was largely instrumental in influencing the votes of provincial associations when called upon to say wlictb, in their opinion, the Davis Cup contest for 1911 should be played.

It was thought that New Zealand—nay, Australasia—would bo lost without t£o services of tho Canterbury man, and, naturally, however much resentment they might feel at the insularity of Wilding's idea, the majority of associations naturally declared-for Christchurch. Then, some months ago, when piactioally all arrangements had been made, tennis jieoplo were staggered to learn that Wilding would not, or could not, come. Semi-paralysis 6et in, and it was foolishly imagined that all was over, and Dwight Davis's Cup was already en route to America. J' 1 ™ came the announcement that \\ luli.ug was engaged to be married to an heiress, and whether it was out of sympathy or not, most people found, in the report, an adequate excuse for the noncoming of tho great knight of tho racket. But that report was promptly contradicted by Wilding himself, and matters remained as they were, and our cup of regret overflowed once more. He would not como owing to sonic business arrangement, though such had never prevented him from flying from ono side of tin globe to the other for years past. So it is with a chuokle of supreme satisfaction that we tako off our hats and make obeisance to Brookes, Dunlop, and Heath, who, without tho absent greatness, succeeded in defeating America's best. There is only ono speck to mar the hallelujah of it ailthat is, that Larned was not as fit as he might 1)0.

The mystery, taciturnity, and silenoe of the American, about which the correspoiuknts made so much can be summed up in the one word—rheumatism, One can imagine, with a mat deal of sincere sympathy, the anxiety of the trio from the "Land of the Screaming Eagle"- as they waited and waited in the days before the Cup, for the aching- pangs to "let up," and it was small wonder that the sufferer, knowing what was at stake, kept a grim silence, about the weakness which he knew was there, and which would probably affect the result of the games. My congratulations to the Australian trio who did so well, my sympathy for Larned in his suffering. Wilding should be pleased at tho result, too. 1