AGE-LIMIT

NZ Truth, Issue 1150, 15 December 1927, Page 14

AGE-LIMIT

Places Players Out Of Class

Miramar courts" now hear the points-calls in interelub matches, for the third and fourth grade championships are under way. A NEW problem in the control of the game has been set by the crushing defeats inflicted on St. Peter's, Rongotai and Khandallah in the third-grade championship and on Rong'otal and Miramar in the fourth grade. In all these cases the losers won two or three matches out* of sixteen and are obviously out of their class. Since, this year, the grade competitions will be played to a finish, it makes no odds so far as the evenness of the contests go. But It Is little good to either the players or to the opposition that a side should be trampled upon in this manner. Earlier in the season the management committee ran out a grading list of the clubs. It was, of necessity, a rule of thumb list, since there was not much experience to guide anybody, and last year's encounters did not furnish a mine of information. They could not even give an approximate idea of the relative strength of the sides, for so large was the entry that the first round was not completed. i, Now it is evident that some of the smaller clubs have not realized their weakness. It is a characteristic of smaller clubs that they do not know just what their standard of play is. You won't find a Lance Johnson and N. P. McGregor playing together in the St. Peter's Club. They get out and join some large club, where the better tennis is going. But it is quite easily seen that too many poor teams have begun play in the third-grade competition. If they stay, there they are going to ruin the championship,- from the point of view of match experience and incentive to improve. They are also going to give their conquerors a false idea of their gTeatness. . "Umpire's" advice to these clubs Is to get out of the third-grade competition and into the fourth grade before this damage is done. The management committee should facilitate the transfer, for it will be in the interests , of the game as a whole, even if It upsets some carefully-planned arrangements. Look to the Juniors For some extraordinary reason the quarterly meeting of the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association sat very hard on a proposal to establish a national junior championship, running" up to 21 years.

The real reason may have been that the very imperfect description of the event on the order paper left delegates in the dark as to what was meant by a national "junior championship" and that in the absence of instructions from their associations they were not prepared to vote. But the proposal was thrown ou good and hard and it may be too lat( to do anything- this year. The determining factor was probably the fact pointed out by that tenni! toiler, George Goldie, that the presen so-called "junior" championship wa: established to commemorate worldchampion Anthony Wilding, and tha' anything which interfered with i should not be supported. The prevailing opinion was that th< juniors were well enough catered foi and that the best of the juniors coulc hold their own with the seniors at anj time. Now these two beliefs are absolutely unsound. The juniors are not well enough catered for. Goldie admitted that and decided to move for the establishment of "junior" doubles when the N.Z.L.T.A. meets again. The idea that "the best of the juniors can hold their own with the seniors" is all very fine in the case of exceptional boys like "Buster" Andrews.or Camille Malfroy, but where does it get the remainder of the juniors who are just as worthy of consideration? Andrews may trouble his elders because of his physique; Malfroy may show himself dangerous to the very best because of his perfect stroke equipment and fine temperament, but what about the remainder? Take Ivan Seay, erratic, but very promising at the time he was national junior champion; Neil Goldie, or any other youngster, such as R. Ferkins, whose game or physique is not as settled as that of Andrews or Malfroy. They labor under a tremendous disadvantage. If Rene Lacoste or Vincent Richards are in the world's best class, what then? Does the New Zealand Rugby Union refuse to establish a junior championship because Mark Nicholls was not 20 when he played in the third test against the Springboks, or because Ron. Stewart, aged 19, made the New Zealand test pack in England in 1924? Too Limited If the controlling body looks at the game from the point of view of the players' welfare, and not at whether they are "well enough catered for," it should not hesitate to extend the age of the "junior" championship from under eighteen to under twenty-one. When our last national side went to New South Wales, both Noel Wilson (then New Zealand doubles champion) and E. D. Andrews, runner-up in the national singles title and subsequent winner of the New Zealand singles championship, played in the junior event. And at the same tournament Andrews showed himself class enough to beat an Australian Davis Cup representative and be to runner-up in the Australasian singles ' championship. This restriction of the junior contest to those under eighteen is an abortive attempt to make it a schoolboys' and schoolgirls' championship. It has been claimed that the events have been a success in the past. They have been so much of a success that at the last meeting- at Auckland two entries were received for the girls' event and one of these girls scratched. At present the field is kept smaller than it should be by the absurd limitation. Once a boy passes out of junior class and does not feel himself equal to meeting a whole series of seasoned men in five set encounters he simply does not go to national championship meetings. Even Andrews, who is no weakling, has been seen by the writer, flat on his back, exhausted by a three-set encounter with wily Stan. Powdrell. It comes to this: Either the N.Z.L.T.A. should raise the age to twenty-one, or they should establish special junior championships, with all five events, played at about the same time as the New Zealand meeting and give the juniors their full chance. The suggestion that "the juniors are well-enough catered for" should repudiated. The juniors can never be too well catered for.