THE LAWN TENNIS CHAMPION.*
LAWN TENNIS becomes more popular every year. A few years ago the game appeared to be waning, and some onlookers pro- phesied that it would go out of fashion like croquet, " Diabolo," ping-pong, and other games, whether simple or elaborate. It was not quite fair to mention croquet in this context, for it has always been kept alive by some enthusiasts, and in recent years has waxed rather than waned. Archery might have been more justly included—and we are sorry to say it. At all events, • The Art of Lawn Tennis. By William T. Tilden. London : Methuen. Lee. net.1
lawn tennis has utterly eclipsed that royal and notable game from which it borrowed its title, and the original game of tennis has now generally to be distinguished as " real " tennis.
Even the best players of lawn tennis in its early days would hardly recognize it as it is played to-day. It is in every way a
harder, more active, and more scientific game. Originally nearly all the play was at the back of the court ; when the ball was volleyed it was by accident rather than by design. Moreover, the ball having bounced was allowed almost to reach the ground again before it was taken by the receiver. This gave an opponent plenty of time to see where the ball was going to be placed. Nowadays, of course, hardly any drive is considered a good one unless the ball is taken on its upward bound from the ground and is given a healthy top spin. The real break away from the old pat-ball game began, however, when some of the best players took to volleying every possible ball. When volleying first became a common thing in match play the players used to regard the service line as about the best average position for standing. In doubles, for example, if one player stood near the net while his partner was serving he would not remain there longer than to make one return. He would fall back to the service line, and his partner, who had just served, would run up to the service line.
Mr. Tilden, the lawn tennis champion, in the book before us says that there are only two possible positions on a court. One is about three feet behind the base line, and the other is about six to eight feet back from the net. Mr. Tilden is here writing of singles, but it is just as true of doubles that the position in court cannot be left to chance. Everything depends upon a player being ready and in a comfortable position when he receives the ball. If he is not he will never deal with the ball in that mysteriously effective way which makes it come off the ground much faster than anyone would have expected judging from its speed through the air.
Lawn tennis is indeed rapidly becoming one of the first-class games, if it has not already become so, and the question now is whether what was once scorned by public school boys should be taken seriously and ranked with cricket and football. We have
reached the point where Englishmen must decide whether they think it worth while to make the necessary effort to win the lawn tennis championships. At present, as a nation, we arc not going the right way about it. Boys do not play lawn tennis with any serious intent except perhaps in the holidays. If we are to turn out good players equal to tackling the Americans and Australians in the years ahead, it will probably be necessary to let boys play lawn tennis more while they are at school. Moreover, we shall have to make a great many more hard courts so that practice may go on all the year round.
Some people think that anybody can learn lawn tennis by the light of nature, whereas golf is thought to be a game which needs to be definitely taught. Really there is quite as much to be taught in the one as in the other. In lawn tennis matters of stance, of distributing the weight of the body, and of " following through " a stroke and keeping the eye on the ball are quite as important as in golf. Mr. Tilden tells us that he began his career all wrong, though some of us would have liked to have begun all wrong, too, with such results. As regards keeping the eye on the ball, Mr. Tilden says :—
" Lot me turn now to the first principle of all ball games, whether tennis; golf, cricket, baseball, polo, or football. Keep your eye on the ball ! Just a few statistics to show you how vital it is that the eye must be kept on the ball until the moment of striking it. About 85 per cent. of the points in tennis are errors, and the remainder earned points. As the standard of play rises the percentage of errors drops until, in the average high-class tournament match, 60 per cent. are errors and 40 per cent. aces. Any average superior to this is super-tennis. Thus the impor- tance of getting the ball in play cannot be too greatly emphasized. Every time you put the ball back to your opponent you give him another chance to miss. There are several causes for missing strokes. First, and by far the largest class, is not looking at the ball up to the moment of striking it. Fully 80 per cent. of all errors are caused by taking the eye from the ball in the last one-fifth of a second of its flight.. The remaining 20 per cent. of errors are about 15 per cent. bad footwork, and the other 5 per cent. poor racquet work and bad bounces."
If you keep your eye on the ball you are relieved automatically of .the highly conscious and troublesome duty of wondering what your opponent is going to do. The one duty includes the other. Onlookers have sometimes been astonished at noticing how little comparatively good players run about the court.
We referred just now to the top spin given to a driven ball. This spin is given more by force of arm than by force of wrist. Mr. Tilden provides illustrations in the book showing how different what is called the East American hold of the racket is from the British hold. The East American hold shows a straight line formed by arm, wrist, and racket handle. The English hold gives a broken line as the wrist is a little dropped. Mr. Tilden writes as follows about serving :-
"Varied pace and varied speed is the keynote to a good service. I spent hours in serving alone, striving to disguise the twist and pace of the ball. I would take a box of a dozen balls out on the court and serve the whole dozen to No. 1 court with one style of delivery. Then, crossing, I would serve them back with another type of service. Next, I would try the left court from both sides. My next move would be to pick out a certain section of the service court, and serve for that until I could putt the ball where I wanted it. Finally, I would strive to put it there with speed. All the time spent in this practice has stood me in good stead, for to-day it is my service that pulls me out of many a deep hole, and causes many a player to wish he was delivering the ball. William M. Johnston, the American Champion, has a remarkable service for so short a man. He times his stroke perfectly, and hits it at the top of his reach, so that he gets the full benefit of every inch of his stature and every pound of his weight. He uses the slice delivery in the majority of matches. Do not try freak services. They are useless agaiest high-class players. Sharp breaking underhand cuts can be easily angled off for points by a man who knows anything of the angles and effects of twist. These deliveries are affectation if used more than once or twice in a long match. A sudden shift may surprise your opponent ; but to continue to serve these freaks is to destroy their use. Mishu, the Rumanian star, has many very peculiar deliveries ; but, when playing against high-class tennis, he has brains enough to use a straight service. The freak services delight and yet annoy a gallery, for, once the novelty has worn off, nothing but the conceit remains. The object of service is to obtain the maximum return with the minimum effort. This statement holds true for all tennis strokes, but in none so strongly as in service. The average player hits his first service so hard, and with so little regard for direction, that about nine out of ten first deliveries are faults. Thus, one half your chances aro thrown away, and the chance of double faulting increased proportionately. There is a well-known tennis saying to the effect that one fault is a mistake, but two faults are a crime—that sums up the idea of service adequately. A player should always strive to put his first delivery in court. In the first place it is apt to catch your opponent napping, as he half expects a fault. Secondly, it conserves your energy by removing the need of a second delivery, which, in a long five-set match, is an item of such importance that it may mean victory or defeat. I urge all players to put their service into court with just as much speed as they can be sure of, but to serve both deliveries at about the same speed. Do not slog the first ball and pat the second, but hit both with average pace."
At the end of his book Mr. Tilden gives an estimate of several well-known players. We will quote his remarks on Mlle. Lenglen :-
" Mlle. Lenglen's speed of foot is marvellous. She runs fast and easily. She delights in acrobatic jumps, many of them unnecessary, at all times during her play. She is a wonderful gallery player, and wins the popularity that her dashing style deserves. She is a brilliant court general, conducting her attack with a keen eye on both the court and the gallery. Mlle. Lenglen is not outstanding among the women players of the world, in my opinion. She is probably the best to-day, yet Mrs. Lambert Chambers, Mrs. George Wightman, Miss Elizabeth Ryan, Mrs. Franklin Mallory (formerly Miss Molla Bjurstedt), Miss Mary Browne, and Mrs. May Sutton Bundy are all in her class. There is no woman playing tennis to-day that has the powerful person- ality of Mlle. Lenglen. Her acrobatic style and grace on the court form an appeal no gallery can resist. Her very manner- isms fool people into considering her far greater than she really is, even though she is a wonderful player. In marked contrast to the eccentricities of Mlle. Lenglen one finds the delightfully polished style of Mrs. Lambert Chambers. Mrs. Chambers has a purely orthodox game of careful execution that any student of the game should recognize as the highest form of tennis strokes."
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