WITH RACQUET AND BALL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 546, 26 December 1928, Page 8

WITH RACQUET AND BALL

I IKE sceptre and crown, the tennis racket and ball holds sway over many lands. Lawn tennis is the one great international sport, and its appeal, unlike that of cricket and football, has no national restriction. On the famous courts at Wimbledon when the All-Comers singles is played, there is a real league of nations. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, Germans, Spaniards meet together, try their skill, and frequently win fame on English soil. Full-throated cheering there has greeted Helen Wills and Suzanne Lenglen; old hostilities have been forgotten as the marvellous Fraulein Aussem flashed over the courts. This is the power of tennis, the world’s most popular sport. It is only within the last 15 years that the game has come into its own in New Zealand, and even now, the “gate” at a tennis test match is a poor assemblage compared with that at a football match ; but the great thing is this: tennis attracts players, not spectators. Football has a wonderful hold on the New Zealand mind, but there are nevertheless more tennis players in the Dominion than footballers. In the biggest cities and the humblest hamlets right through the Dominion, the flannelled figures of tennis players may be seen flashing about courts on summer afternoons. The official roll tells us that there are 23,586 players connected with clubs affiliated with the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association. These numbers do not include the players of a casual game “for the figui'e’s sake”; but they are sufficiently illuminating. The game, which can be made strenuous enough to suit all tastes, has many charms, and one of them is that men and women can play it on equal terms. Tennis has no barriers at all :it is the greatest social game, and it is the greatest international game. To-day, if the weather grows kinder, the New Zealand championship tournament will begin in Auckland. Players have come from all parts of the country to compete, and many hearts must be beating high with hopes of honour to be wou. The style of the players will be different from that of those who played at the first tournament held at Farndon near Napier, 42 years ago, but there will be the same eager spirit of contest: the same desire to win if possible, but first of all, to play the game for the game’s sake. New Zealand has never won the Davis Cup, but it has bred a world’s tennis champion, and this should be incentive enough to the young players who have their best tennis years before them. The older players need no incentive : they know the infinite charm of racket and ball, and many times have they joyed in “the rigour of the game.” _