Why Wimbledon Draws

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 944, 10 April 1930, Page 15

Why Wimbledon Draws

MECCA OF LAWN TENNIS Fashion and Its Dictates MANY people wobder wliy the drawing powers of Wimbledon are so immeasurably superior to those of Forest Tliils and other centres of the game. The stadium at Forest Hills has not been anywhere near full since 1927, when Lacoste and Tilden battled before a gallery that over-taxed the capacity of the structure. Yet Wimbledon, which has practically the same capacity around the centre court as has the Long Island structure, is packed and jammed on “big” days and comfortably filled all through the meeting. Furthermore, in 1929 the Wimbledon management returned some £60,000 to unsuccessful applicants for season tickets.”

The Wimbledon meeting is held during the height of the London “season," when the hotels are chock-a-block and social and sporting activities are at their -zenith,” explains “American Lawn Tennis” in an editorial. It has. become the fashion to attend Wimbledon. Nearly every strata of society is; represented. From shortly after noon until eight or nine o’clock the grounds are filled with people, most of whom find pleasure in wandering around, sampling the fare provided on the 15 courts. The centre court gets most j of them, of course, but even it is & { movable feast; the policemen are kep: t busy handling the traffic that flows both ways at the scores of stairways. But No. 1 court’ has its thousands of i spectators, and Nos. 2 and 3 courts accommodate galleries only relatively I smaller. Nearly all the other “outside” courts are surrounded by hundreds of j people, and sometimes they are so , packed in the lanes that locomotion is almost impossible. Thousands of people bring “snacks,” consisting of the omnipresent tea and edibles of all kinds. There is also the “tea enclos- i ure,” seating thousands, the bar which caters to many hundreds, and the club open-air restaurant. The spectacle can be witnessed almost any time of family parties comfortably disposed in the shade near an outside court, and partaking of an elaborate and fortifying luncheon—while Cochet and Tilden, say, are at death grips on the centre court. FLOWER OF WORLD’S PLAYERS Fashion and its dictates are now in themselves sufficient to crowd Wimbledon for two weeks or more. There is a bill of fare, solid and substantial and appetising as well. The ingredients, that go to make up this more than Lucullan feast are five championships, contested by the flower of e world’s players of both sexes. During the first week or ten» days there is more to see than any mortal can take in properly; it is a hurlyburly of excitement and endeavour that almost borders on the futile—or so it seems at times. One can sit comfortably under roof and watch the play on the centre court; and to some that is the be-all and end-all, the remainder of the Wimbledon world being considered well lost. The conscientious have no such recourse, however. Theirs is the task of clashing into the centre court seats afid dashing out; of striving to get near enough to No. 1 court to get a glimpse of the play there; and of accomplishing miracles by guessing rightly which ones of the remaining battery of courts are worth bucking the line of massed spectators, utilising every vantage point to see what star is nearly going down to defeat on them.

The visitor to Wimbledon gets his money’s worth. There is always “something doing.” Before one match is finished another is ready to go on in its place. Variety is the keynote of these matches. After the first day it may be a men’s single or double, a women’s ditto, or a hybrid, so to say, with the sexes mixed and intermingled almost inextricably. Early in the meeting play begins at one o’clock, and the wise habitue makes no hard and fast evening engagement—for a match of the greatest importance may still be going on at nine o’clock of the long June day, which is further lengthened by the device of daylight saving. There are 14 days of this, more or less, at least, and the cost of a season ticket for the centre court is £3 3s. The season tickets for No. 1 court—for the hoipolloi, as distinguished from members, guests, Pressmen, etc., mast buy the two sets —cost £3 12s. When we say “cost” we mean “now cost,” for a new scale becomes effective this year. LONDON’S BIGGEST SHOW Wimbledon is the biggest show that even London, the world’s biggest city, stages. Nothing in lawn tennis even approaches it. Built in 1922, the new stadium was deemed huge, and sufficient to accommodate the followers of the game lor many decades. Already it is outgrown, lamentably inadequate. Yet the finite mind can glimpse no way of grappling successfully with the problem of increasing the capacity of the centre court structure—for everything comes within its orbit during the last two or three days of the meeting.

TROTTING REMINDERS

NOMINATIONS April 15.—Taranaki T.C. (E>. Le C. Mor pan, secretary). April 15.—Cambridge T.C. (Walter Stopford, secretary). ACCEPTANCES April 14.—Hawera T.C. (E. P. Cox, secretary). April 15. —N.Z. Metropolitan T.C. (A. I. Rattray, secretary). April 23. —Taranaki T.C. (De Le C. Morgan. secretary). April 2S.—Cambridge T.C. (Walter Stopford, secretary). TROTTING FIXTURES April 10-12—Wanganui T.C. April 19-21—Hawera T.C. April 19, 23 —N.Z. Metropolitan T.C. April 26—Taranaki T.C. April 26—Ashburton T.C. May 3—Cambridge T.C. May S. 10—Forbury .Park T.C. May 17—Oamaru T.C. June 21, 23 —Auckland T.C. RACING FIXTURES APRIL. 11. 12.—Hawke’s Bay J.C. 12. Otautau R.C. 12.—Hororata R.C. 12. 14. Westport J.C. 12. 14. —Waikato R.C. 19. 21.—Auckland R.C. 19.—Tuaneka County J.C. 19. 21.—Wairarapa R.C. 19. 21.—Feilding J.C. 19. 21. 22. —Riverton R.C. 21.—Beaumont R.C. 21.—'Waipukurau J.C. 21.—Kumara R.C. 21. 22.—Canterbury J.C. 23, 24.—Westland R.C. 26. 28.—Gre.vmouth J.C. 26. 30.—Avondale J.C. 30.—Reefton J.C. ANSWER TO CORRESPONDENT R. 8., Te Teko. — (1) Maori Boy won j the race you mention, with Le Choucas second and Sir Russell [ third; (.2) Am making inquiries.

Attendance at lawn tennis matches is effected by three conditions —climatic conditions, accessibility and attractiveness. Wimbledon scores heavily in the matter of climate, partly because the date of the meeting is June and early July, and also because it is cooler in England than in either America or France; while the fact is that, alone of the three cities —London, New York and Paris—the Wimbledon stadium has a roof over its greater part. Spectators watch centre court matches seated in comfortable seats with backs and in grateful shade—except the 5,G00 or more ‘‘standees,” who, packed in until there is not room for one more, are baked by the sun and drenched by the rain. In America—at Forest Hills, Germantown and Longwood—there is no covering, except where there are marquees or similar structures of limited capacity; and this is also true of the French clubs —Roland Garros, Racing Club and Btado Francais. ATTRACTIVE WIMBLEDON In accessibility by the multitude Forest Hills and Roland Garros are much alike, with Wimbledon third. The journey to Forest Hills by railway train is made quickly but not always comfortably; the Stado Roland Garros is close to the centre of Paris, but the transportation methods underground, surface railways, buses and taxicabs—are inadequate. Wimbledon is reached by underground trains, but ’•t is necessary to change to a bus or Taxi at Southfields. Taxis are the preferable way at both Wimbledon and Roland Garros, and t'he fares m Paris are preposterously low. By taxi or private car to Forest Hills is fairly expensive and the roads are badly congested. In the matter of attractiveness Wimbledon is far in the lead over Forest Hills and Roland Garros, as has been indicated in the foregoing paragraphs. Roland Garros, however, is decidedly inferior to the Racing Club and the Stade Francais. Of American clubs of prominence, Germantown is first in attractiveness, with Longwood next, and Forest Hills is a rather bad third. If the present Wimbledon were razed to the ground, like Carthage of old, a vastly improved home of the game would be erected in its stead A stadium seating 100,000 is conceivable under such circumstances; but what is not conceivable is the razing of the present structure. Not even the pyramids of Ghizeh are more solid and time-enduring than seems the concrete and steel edifice at Church Road, in the pleasant London suburb of Wimbledon.