LAWN TENNIS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 162, 8 January 1912, Page 8

LAWN TENNIS.

WITHOUT WILDING. DAVIS CUP THOUGHTS. Says a writer in the Wellington Dominion:—. It will be peculiarly pleasing to many interested in tennis in Wellington, and probably elsewhere in New Zealand, that the Davis Cup has been held—gloriously held—without the assistance of Anthony Wilding. '

!Now that the Cup has been lost and won, one may write freely on the somewhat extraordinary action of the New { Zealander in regard to the big event. | All tennis players will remember the j bitterness engendered over a year ago, i when the New Zealand Association nomi--1 nated Wellington as the place where the j Cup matches should be played. After much intrigue and a good deal of sparj ring, it was announced that Wilding would not play if the matches were Hot played in Christchurch, and there is not the slightest doubt that this extraordinary decision on the part of the cham--1 pion was largely instrumental in influ-•-encing the votes of provincial associations when called upon to say where, in their opinion, the Davis Cup contest for 1911 should be played. It was thought that New Zealand—- ', nay, Australasia—would be lost without ] the services of the Canterbury man, and, I naturally,' however much resentment I they might feel at the insularity of Wilding's idea, the majority of associations naturally declared for Christchurch.

Then, some months ago, when practically all arrangements had been made, tennis people were staggered to learn that Wilding would not, or could not, come. Semi-paralysis set in, and it was foolishly imagined that all was over, and Dwight Davis' Cup was already en route to America.

Then came the announcement that Wilding was engaged to be married to an heiress, and whether it was out of sympathy or not, most people found, in the report, an adequate excuse for the non-coming of the great knight of the racquet.

But that report was promptly contradicted by Wilding himself, and matters remained as they were, and our cup or regret overflowed once more. He would not come owing to some business arrangement, though such had never prevented him from flying from one side of the globe to the other for years past. So it is with a chuckle of supreme satisfaction that we take off our hats and make obeisance to Brookes, Dunlop and Heath, who, without tne absent greatness, succeeded in defeating America's best. There is only one speck to mar the hallelujah of it all—that is, that Lamed was not as fit as he might be. The mystery, taciturnity and silence of the American, about which the correspondents made so much can be summed up in the one word—rheumatism. One can imagine, with a great deal of sincere sympathy, the anxiety of the trio from the "Land of the Screaming Eagle" as they waited in the days before the Cup, for the achings pangs to "let up," and it was small wonder that the sufferer, knowing what was at stake, kept a grim silence, about the weakness which he knew was there, and which would probably affect the result of the games.