TENNIS IN THE KING COUNTRY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 547, 5 March 1913, Page 5

TENNIS IN THE KING COUNTRY.

The Editor

Sir, —Having read tho contributed article on the above subject appearing in your issue of the Ist inst., I think it only fair to write a few lines in reply. Your contcibutor, amongst other things, says that there is no inducement for other clubs to travel to Te Kuiti for the purpose of playing matches, owing to the bad courts supplied. While admitting that the courts in their present state are hardly fit for play, I would point out that this is not the fault of the club. These courts, as anyone who takes an interest in the game must know, were only laid down at the beginning of the present season, and cannot therefore be expected to play as well as old established courts. The club has been greatly handicapped by the want of water, and as soon as the water mains are laid past the* club's property it is the intention of the committee to have the water laid on. When this is done, the courts will be able to be watered and rolled before play, and should then be as good as any sand courts in the King Country. I would also like to point out that all matches for the Howard Shield, with the exception of the first, have a been played on the old courts, and these, in my opinion., wore as good as any sand courts could be. Before the last match was played I wrote informing the Mangapehi Club that the courts were not fit to play on, and would not be until there was some rain, but as they insisted on playing, tho committee did their best to get the court into order. The Te Kuiti Club has this year gone to considerable expense in having- four new courts formed and fenced and a pavilion erected, and I think it unreasonable for your contributor to ask why the club does not do something to the courts. Personally, Ido not think any other club in the King Country has expended as much money as the Te Kuiti Club on tho game. Your contributor, who appears to be well posted in the King Country Lawn Tennis Association's affairs, states that the Te Kuiti Club is unfinancial, being in arrears with its subscription to the association. This was so, but it was quite an oversight, and has now been rectified. If his contention that owing to a club being unfinancial it was ineligible to play in Shield matches is correct, I would submit that the last matchwith the Mangapehi Club, when, that club beat Te Kuiti, was not a legitimate match, and the Shield should not pass to Mangapehi. This is, of course, a point which the Te Kuiti Club would not raise.—l am, etc., H. O. ROBINSON, Hon. Sec. Te Kuiti Lawn Tennis Club (Incorpd).