TENNIS STARS PRACTISE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 501, 2 November 1928, Page 6

TENNIS STARS PRACTISE

IMPRESSIVE AUSTIN SPARKLING DOUBLES The English tennis team practised at Stanley Street courts yesterday. Of the four players, Collins is of the lean and rangy type, but Higgs and Gregory are burly specimens, while even Austin is hardly so frail as advance reports had suggested. The fact is, he is exceedingly active, with a wonderful sense of court position. Always he contrives to be in the right spot for the coming ball, and this is especially noticeable in his superb work at the net. Higgy %nd Aufetin, in a single, put on some or the best tennis seen yesterday. Higgs, all eagerness with his springy half-crouch, and an athletic figure in his businesslike training single, hits very hard from the back court, and his backhand cross-court is a gem. Austin, playing in a war-worn Cambridge cap, was always the more picturesque figure. Every ground shot has its graceful follow through. He seemed to skip about as if imbued with the sheer zest of being back on a court bathed in sunshine, and some of his little tricks and mannerisms bore evidence of a wonderful eye. SPARKLING DOUBLE Gregory coyld not pick up his game at all, except in a double toward the close of the afternoon, when he and Austin dispo«‘d of Higgs and Collins. But here again it was Austin who furnished the finesse. Collins took half a dozen games in a row from Gregory in a single. Gregory could do nothing right, though the power in his strokes, and occasional clever variety, showed the sound material that is there. By comparison the New Zealanders, seen in a double a little later, were ragged. Bartleet was always the most conspicuous, the others lacking any sort of sustained precision, with Wilson consistently off his game.