BRILLIANT TENNIS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 867, 10 January 1930, Page 13

BRILLIANT TENNIS

NEW PLYMOUTH TOURNEY PLAY THE HANDICAP SYSTEM Special to THE SUN NEW PLYMOUTH, Thursday. Light rain overnight and a freezing wind from Mount Egmont slightly deadened play at the New Plymouth lawn tennis tourney today. Events ai-e being rather drawn out and play will continue on Saturday. Auckland’s representatives in the men’s events made a wonderful showing, every one playing brilliantly. A. C. Stedman has come back to form, and gave Pease no chance when they met today. Though Pease is a good player the scores were 6—o, G—l. Entwistle surprised everyone by beating M. L. Lampe, the crack Wanganui man, 3—6, 6—3, 6—2. The Aucklander has some good shots and unlimited energy. Nicholson, whose unorthodox style beat Webster, the New Plymouth champion, 6—3, 6 —l, put in some quick shots and was too accurate in his placing for Webster. Charters and Stedman beat their fellow citizens, Turner and Hardy, 6—l, 6—2. Turner had the most exciting match of the day with Rhodes-Williams (Christchurch), who finally beat him 6—B, 6 —-2, 6—l. Rhodes-Williams was hard-pressed and had to fight hard to beat his sporting opponent. Turner played magnificent tennis. WANING POPULARITY

A few years ago the New Plymouth lawn tennis tournament was one of the most popular events of the year among players. Competitors travelling from tournament to tournament almost always visited New Plymouth, voting play there to be some of the happiest and best managed in the Dominion. Lately the number of entries lias fallen away and some members of the association were not altogether 'satisfied with the progress of the events this year. It would seem that the management is very efficient, barring per haps, slight inconsistencies in handicapping and a tendency to draw out play from a four to a five-day tournament. Two reasons, and very strong ones they are, conspire to defeat the efforts of the members of the committee to maintain the high standard. One is the use of the system of playing for points instead of games in handicap events. The other is the small number of grass' courts available. COURTS LITTLE ROUGH The New Plymouth tournament is being played on six courts and these are inclined to be a little rough and are turfed with stiff grass like a hairbrush. Since lawn tennis has developed into such a popular game, clubs have increased the number of courts, and even Wanganui has approximately sixty public and club grass courts in and about the city.. This increased number has enabled speeding up and shortening of tournaments in most places. To spend five days at the New Plymouth tournament is thus considered too long and incidentally expensive, by many outside players who are otherwise keen to play there. Handicap eevnts in Auckland, Christchurch and Wanganui are always played in games and handicapped on owed and received odds. These events in many other parts are decided on a system of points. This is a most obnoxious system and is, of course, not lawn tennis at all. THE POINTS SYSTEM Under the points system there is no let-up. A player has to watch each point and tlio play degenerates into ping-pong. The excuse made for playing points is that it is easier to handicap and easier to umpire. Surely the people of Wellington, New Plymouth and Palmerston North do not allow Auckland, Christchurch and Wanganui to claim any higher "intelligence” than their own, yet, from the games point of view, these latter centres have no trouble over scoring. Where games are played “cracks” enter for some of the handicap events to enable them to have a “pipe-opener,” but playing points nullifies this with the result that so far as New Plymouth is concerned at any rate, handicap events show a decided decrease this year. Y ery foolishly, and quite wrongly, the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association has in its new rules more or less approved of this points game by providing certain conditions for it. How much wiser has been the action of the Wanganui Association, which has a rule providing that affiliated clubs shall play any competitions, except in games, and what can'be done in V anganui can surely be done in the rest of New Zealand. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS The sooner these points competitions are dropped the better it will be for the standard of play among handicap players. The wisdom of setting the New Zealand tennis championships down to be decided toward the end of January instead of in Christmas week has already been demonstrated from the players’ point of view. Those who have for many years advocated the later date have stressed the point that our summer rarely starts much before Christmas (this year it hasn’t started yet and January is getting on). To ask grass court players to go

straight on and play for Dominion titles with little club practice and no tournament play was—though probably the same for all—not catering for the players being at the top of their form. Under the new conditions things are working out differently. Starting with the Auckland tourney at Christmas time, and the Canterbury and South Canterbury events, in the South Island, a regular chain of meetings is proceeding, which will culminate in Wellington at the end of the month. The form shown by the leading players has so far not been up to their true plane, as witness the defeats of Miss MacFarlane in Auckland and Mrs. Melody and A. C. Stedman in Wanganui. N. R. WILSON’S PLAY At the North Island championships at Wanganui, Noel Wilson at times played tennis that would have eliminated him at a. New Zealand meeting in short order, but as the meeting progressed he improved, till in the final of the men’s championship doubles he rose to those heights which have given him his reputation as one of the best doubles players New Zealand has produced. Stedman was well below par at Wanganui, but New Plymouth is witnessing a Stedman more like the youth who did so well last year. Miss Ramsay’s play is also showing a decided improvement. The slow courts in New Plymouth appear to be suiting her style of play. With tournaments to follow at regular intervals at Palmerston North and Hawke’s Bay, players should be well wound up by the time the big meeting at Miramar arrives.