LAWN TENNIS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 September 1921, Page 5

LAWN TENNIS.

TILDEN’S DEFEAT BY A LAD. American papers give details of the way pupil triumphed over master, when Vincent Richards, the 18-year-old Yonkers tennis wonder, vanquished William T. Tilden second of Providence, R. 1.. by a score of 6-2, 6-1, 2-6, 6-0 in the final round of the men’s State championship singles at the Agawam Hunt Club. The defeat was a stunning upset. Tilden’s tennis wizardry, which had wrecked the play of Fenno, Guild, Neer, Garland and Washburn, in the other rounds, was eclipsed by the compelling attack and well-nigh impregnable defence of the national junior and Western champion, who showed even greater form against Tilden,than in his match on Friday in which he eliminated from the championship fight no less an international celebrity than R. Norris Williams. Tilden, it is needless to say, was not at his best.

A generous loser, Tilden said after the match: “Richards was unbeatable today. He played great tennis. His game has improved tremendously. I doubt if any man in the world could have beaten him the way he was going this afternoon.”

Richards, the personification of steadiness and speed in this his greatest conquest on the outdoor court seemed to have gauged, more closely than any spectator the collapse of his opponent’s game. With the first ball lie delivered in the third set, a smashing service ace, there was added to his gaine a confident note. His attack gathered power. When Tilden whipped a shot into a far corner Richards was there to meet it. When the hero of Wimbledon and St. Cloud drove viciously, the youth of eighteen sliced the ball over on twisting returns that were hammered back into the net or out of bounds. When the possessor of the most terrific service in tennis rallied his strength and boomed a shot over the net. the stripling turned it back without apparent effort.

Richards was in complete command, and when he capped the climax of a week’s marvellous work by running out the set at love, the spontaneous ovation that followed the final and winning point, a placement ace, was a tribute to the skill of a master workman.