TENNIS SKY IS BARREN

NZ Truth, Issue 1302, 27 November 1930, Page 14

TENNIS SKY IS BARREN

NO YOUNGSTERS AVAILABLE COUNCIL MUST LOOK TO JUNIORS GAME HAS SLIPPED (From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Tennis Writer). 'THE whole future of the tennis game , * m New Zealand may hang m the ! balance this week while the delegates of the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association meet m Wellington to deal with questions of policy. For the only too apparent fact is that instead of moving ahead, the tennis game is reaching a more or less stationary position. v For the first time, last season, there failed to appear an outstanding? youngster who could be regarded as a coming national champion. A few years ago they were springing up m groups, first A. W. Sim, the Frances and Ivan Seay, then Noel Wilson, E. D. Andrews and Neil Goldie, then a whole heap which began with Malfroy and Angas and extended through Sturt and Knott to Stedmam Always, m the juniors at the national meeting there has been an outstanding personality who has been able* to make it hot for the less classy men. But this last season there has been no boy who looked likely to sweep into the ranking list Inside a season or so. The events of last season were the rl6e of Charlie Angas, the founding of the Wilson -Stedman tennis .team . which allowed young Stedman to reach his first national final, and the development of Charters, the. solid Auckland man. There was not a sign of a "discovery." ' That can have only one meaning and that meaning an alarming one! The game has slipped a little. This fact means that the reconditioning of junior tennis so as to allow the emergence of good lads is becoming urgent." In the past there has been time to talk, now action is imperative. If the New Zealand Council fails to act for the betterment of the facilities for the youngsters this week-end, it' will have failed m its trust. In New Zealand we should be able to throw up/ new boys every season, and when we don't, something has gone wrong. There are tennis players leaving school each year, and it is at that age that they show their promise to the full, for they have the elasticity of youth. It is futile to argue that we cannot expect to produce new stars each year, the hard fact is that we always have. The sign of a barren . sky means that very probably the Stars who should be there have been lost to other sports. And they have been lost for only one reason — lack of , encouragement.