THE “BEST” PLAYER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 210, 24 November 1927, Page 8

THE “BEST” PLAYER

WHAT MAKES HIM? BRAINS VERSUS BRAWN It generally is conceded that the better player wins in matches, and rightly so, but why and how is he the better player, and what are the attributes out of which “best” is compounded? The only feasible solution to this question is that brains are even more important than brawn as a match-winning factor. In an editorial, “American Lawn Tennis” shows how important matches in big tennis have been won and lostAt the St. Cloud championships in France there was no doubt that W. T. Tilden (United States) was the better man when he defeated Henri Cochet. The match was won and lost In the first set. A brilliant Cochet produced his best in that initial set, and found that it was not good enough. Tilden matched him stroke for stroke, and played a game in which a willingness to lose the opening set, if. he must, was displayed, together with a strong disinclination to lose it, and subsequently he opened right out at the critical period, to win with ease. Referring to the final round of this meeting between Tilden and Rene Lacoste, “American Lawn Tennis” states: “The effects of attrition were relied upon by both men. Lacoste is the master of such tactics, and the verdict went to him in the end. That match brought forth the remark from the Frenchman that Tilden had become a defensive player. There were enough elements of truth in this remark to give it great weight. In that bdstoric match Tilden won when he took the offensive. The climax of his attacking periods came with his famous serve when he was match point, and the decision of the qualified judge that the apparent ace was a fault. “HERO OF WIMBLEDON” “The hero of Wimbledon was, of course, Cochet. Three times he lost the first two sets and yet won the match. In the first of these, against Hunter, by lifting his game by almost half-thirty, Cochet won he last three sets by wide margins. Nothing that Hunter did, and he played well, mattered. Against Cochet, in the ne\xt round, Tilden was the offensive playar par excellence. It was Cochet who diA not matter. Except in the fifth set,, when too late Tilden was beginning to find himself again, Cochet was a lay figure; but then he played in a manner worthy of the Wimbledon champion he was soon to become. Here, too, it is plain how the match was won and lost. The. complete loss of control by Tilden when he needed only one game for a straight set victory rendered him helpless. He struggled to regain his control, and wore himself out in the attempt. It was a tactical mistake, realised soon but not soon enough to be undone. There is no intermission at Wimbledon. Chucking the fourth set would have served the same purpose as an intermission. “J. Borotra’s defeat of Lacoste was unexpected. It was accomplished by offensive play. Not until the fifth set did Lacoste perceive the hand writing on the wall. The consciousness of impending, and unexpected, defeat was borne upon him when Borotra ‘punched* a backhand volley to Lacoste’s left wing for the win of .a most important point. Borotra avoided Tildea's mistake. lie let two sets go altfcost by default, and then launched his thunderbolts when they counted most heavily. Borotra’s play in this period was simplicity itself. “There remains the Wimbledon final. Cochet against Borotra. The salient feature of that match, its kernel, was the six or seven match points—there is a difference of opinion as to whether it was six or seven—which Borotra had. They are divisible into two classes. In one are the bids for victory that were countered by Cochet, in the other Borotra’s failure to obtain the lethal ace S: -In rr rh rf,

because of exhaustion. To reach match point Borotra gave almost all he had. A little more of physical strength, or a little less of brilliant defensive-offen-sive play by Cochet would have returned the playing-through champion a winner. To have held firm in the face of those successive match points stamped Cochet one of the greatest match winners of the day. “A year ago W. M. Johnston beat Lacoste and Borotra in matches only one day apart, losing only one set out of the se-ven played, for the purpose of this article these matches were simplicity epitomised. Johnston hit from start to finish, and neither the superb defensive play of Lacoste nor the brilliant attack of Borotra mattered a whit. Tilden’s win from Borotra® in the Davis Cup that year, was due to the employment of tactics that were in the main offensive. The Borotrian charges to the net were countered by hard spinning drives that presented insuperable obstacles to effective volleying—even by the Basque. Tilden’s play was more complex than Johnston’s, but it was equally effective. Against Lacoste, on the third day, Tilden was well on tho way to another victory when he injured his knee.

“In the National Championship, which followed immediately, Borotra prepared the way for the all-French final. His tactics were the same as against Lacoste a year later. By masking his purpose under a screen of exhaustion, he came from the rear to beat both Johnston and Vincent Richards. Meanwhile Lacoste and Cochet had been at deathgrips in a match which was influenced by doubtful decisions of linesmen, and the former came through after employing the first two sets to establish his morale. In the final match a physically exhausted Borotra paid the penalty of the self-sacrifice made in bowling over the two chief obstacles in the French path.” Therefore, it is clear that courtcraft and brains play a greater part in the winning of matches than does even the best stroke equipment.