THE FRENCH STARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 253, 16 January 1928, Page 12

THE FRENCH STARS

ARRIVING TO-DAY WEDNESDAY’S GAMES The French team, comprising Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon and Christian Boussus, is due to arrive in WellI ington to-day. On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons they will play matches against a New Zealand team at the Miramar courts. Ollivier and | Bartleet will meet Borotra and Brugnon in the singles, while Knott and Sturt, who won the New Zealand doubles championship last year and were runners-up this year, will oppose the Frenchmen in the doubles. Nearly everybody knows Jean Borotra, the bounding Basque. He has French and Spanish blood in his veins, and the district he was born in—which is in highlands on the boundary of | France and Spain—is peopled by a race who are very proud of their ancestors. In fact it would be hard to find a prouder or more vigorous race than those from which Jean Borotra has descended. He is'the so-called star performer of the French team, but he will possibly point to his companion 1 and proclaim that Jacques Brugnon is * the great doubles player, and that Christian Boussus is France’s wonder player. \ .

He enjoys every minute of a hardfought game, and the harder it is, the more he smiles and enjoys it. To see J him in action is to become his follower. Borotra and Brugnon will play singles on both days, and paired will play the doubles on the second afternoon. Boussus plays on the first day in an exhibition match, and his play is said to be almost as good as that of Borotra or Rucoste. That being so he must be a delightful player to watch. He is fairly tall, has a splendid service, and his overhead work as well as his oif-the-ground shots have to be seen to .be believed. He is still in his teens, bemg about the same age as Malfroy, the New Zealand colt, who meets him m the exhibition singles. It will be a match worth seeing.