LAWN TENNIS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 142, 2 November 1912, Page 7

LAWN TENNIS.

This afternoon .will see the opening of the New Plymouth Club. The greens are in splendid order, and given fine weather should attract a large number of players and visitors.

The Park Club's official opening will take place next Thursday afternoon. Members have already put in much good work.

The Fitzroy Club's season has already been opened. The asphalt courts are being used, but play will not commence on the grass till later in the month.

The twenty-sixth annual meeting of the New Zealand Association was held or Thursday. The report showed that 11,047 players are now affiliated to the Association. Canterbury leads the list with 39 clubs and 2131 players, which is an increase of 10 clubs and 307 players on last year's return. Hawke's Bay and Marlborough also show increases of over 200 apiece; in fact, most of the associations have advanced in the number of clubs and members, excepting Nelson and Wrfnganui, which have stood still, and Wellington, which has gone -back by two clubs and 77 members. The Association's income for the year was £l9B 10s Sd, and the expenditure £125 8s 3d, leaving a profit of £73 2s 2d. The New Zealand championship meeting showed a profit of £107 ( 17s, 4d, the gate and stand receipts being respectively £137 lis (id and £6l 14s Od. The Association lias now some • £2OO in hand.

The Englishmen have arrived in Melbourne, and will settle down at once to steady training for. we Davis Cup contest. When the big event is over, the team will tour, and are expected at Auckland on December 22. They play a match there on the .23rd and 24th, and then journey via Eotorua, Taupo and Napier to Hastings, where they will compete in the Australasian singles and doubles. Later, .matches against New ' Zealand will be played at Christclmrch and Wellington,'and.the.team will leave for Sydney again on January 10. The New Zealand Association has given the British team a guarantee of £l5O. The team will take half the net proceeds of ,the tour, the' remaining half to go to 'the'associations conducting the matches. The Association has asked the Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington Associations to each guarantee the sum of £SO to the New Zealand.Association. The New Zealand Association stands out; it will ; neither gain nor lose anything. Given .fine weather, at each centre, the associations concerned should each receive some small profit. • But it is a gamble.

The New Zealand and Australasian championships, which are to be held at Hastings —the former on December 26, 27 and 28, and the latter on December 30 and 31 and January I—will1 —will be played on six courts provided by the Hastings Club, which has guaranteed the New Zealand Association : against loss, but the club will receive half the net nroceeds above £fio. .The combined meetings should easily show a profit of £IOO, which will leave the Hastings Club £2O. So the club will receive lis 1 l-3d per court per day. The Association has indeed made a wonderful agreement —dirt cheap and no risks.(remarks a southern scribe). Will next year see the New' Zealand meeting put up to auction, and go to the highest bidder? Maurice McLaughlin, who won the hearts of all who had, the good fortune to witness his wonderful tennis at Christchurch last summer, had been doing doughty deeds in America, despite the cable man's notice of his reported retirement for business reasons. He won the Pacific States singing, the Longwood championship (which ranks almost equal to the championship of the United States of America), in which event he defeated in succession Karl Behr, W. J. Clothier and E. P.'Larued'(brother-of the great Darned) . His next victory was in the Western championship, where he defeated T. C. Bundy (one of the foremost players in America), B—lo, (i —1, o—4,0 —4, ♦—4. McLaughlin'ts the first Californian to get his name on the famous Longwood Cup (W. Larned had eight successive victories in this event), and beat all his opponents without loss of a set; As previously stated, two of his victims were Behr and Clothier (both Davis Cup players), the former of whom McLaughlin defeated. 7—5. o—2, 10—8. and the latter, 7-5, 10-8, G-4. E. P. Larned, the holder, was also defeated in straight sets with the greatest of ease. What a pity the Americans did not start out in quest of the cup again, and what will McLaughlin do to the Britishers if he goes over to compete in the AllEngland championship next summer? Horace Eice (Wellington provincial champion, 1909) gave New Zealand's most famous player, TT. A. Parker, a taste of his 1012 quality in the final of the Western Districts championship, at Sydney, a week or ao ago, when Parker could only score a single game, Eice defeating him o—o, G—l, and it is within memory that Parker once beat the great Brookes in an inter-State contest between New South Wales and Victoria. That noted Christchurch enthusiast, T. E. Quill (whose Yankee service is a great joke) still takes his tennis seriously, for the cable man tells us that on the same afternoon he and Parker (thev had played together before!) gave 11. Eice and E. L. Jones a great "go" before being vanquished, 'B—l, 11—13, B—B.