FRANCE’S TENNIS SUPREMACY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 695, 21 June 1929, Page 14

FRANCE’S TENNIS SUPREMACY

IP there is one sport that is international in its scope, it is tennis. In spite of the huge crowds that witness cricket and football Tests in the British Empire; these games attract little attention in other countries. The'Olympic Games, at intervals of four years, bring together the pick of the world’s athletes, hut even this great international gathering is dominated by English-speaking and Scandinavian races. It is not truly international. No, tennis is the game that has spread most. At the AllEngland championships, which open at historic "Wimbledon next Monday morning, there will be representatives from many countries, from New Zealand to Czeclio-Slovakia. - What St. Andrews is to golf, Wimbledon is to tennis, even though it is many years ago since the immortal Dochertys placed England in the forefront of the world’s tennis, and kept it there. Today, Prance leads'. Both in the All-England ch.am.pion•ships and the Davis Cup, it looks almost a certainty that Frenchmen and Americans will fight out the finals, with the odds on that famous trio, Laeoste, Cochet and Borotra—the Three Musketeers of tennis. * America’s veteran players seem to be slipping downhill, although both Tilden and Hunter are still a force to be reckoned with. But the future of American lawn tennis, as with the British Empire, rests with the younger men who are coming on. Lott and Hennessey, of America, Austin and Gregory, of England, Crawford, ITopman and Andrews, from the Antipodes, are the men to whom the Anglo-Saxon nations must look in the future to bring back tennis titles which have gone abroad. .