Evening star. [volume], May 17, 1936, Page 2, Image 82

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Can We the
SIDNEY
WOOD
And how should the campaign
be waged to help us regain
world supremacy in tennis?
Here is the answer
by WlLMER ALLISON
WILMER
ALLISON
'v
Acme Photo
America has launched her
ninth successive chal
. lenge in the attempt to
^ recapture the Davis
Cup, treasured emblem of world
supremacy on the tennis courts.
Our players have already con
quered Mexico. But the acid test
lies just ahead, with Australia
blocking the path. Two weeks
from now the great team from
“down under” must be turned
back in the North American Zone
Final on the turt ot uermaniown. snouiu
Australia defeat us, our tennis hopes for 1936
will be ended, but if we win, then hazards at
least as great face us on the historic Courts of
Wimbledon. Probably Germany will oppose
us in the Inter-Zone Final and the winner of
that tie will earn the right to face England,
the cup holder in the fateful challenge round.
Those two battles must be waged and won
before we can pack up the Davis Cup and
bring it back to the United States.
Can America do it? Can we turn back
Australia’s challenge and follow through to
final victory' over England? What can we do
to help our chances of attaining our goal?
Nobody has asked it of me. but as a battle
scarred veteran of seven years of Davis Cup
warfare on many and far-flung fronts, I feel
the urge to offer some suggestions, from a
player's standpoint, that might aid us.
First, let me present, in capsule form,
a few of th“ remedies I have in mind. It
may be that two or three of these capsules
will be hard to swallow, but I feel sure that
once they 've been gulped down, everyone will
feel better and perhaps that priceless cup
will again be gleaming in a Fifth Avenue
jeweler s snow window.
The suggested remedies, in order .
No. 1 — Don’t “baby” the players.
No. 2 — Take it for granted that the play
ers are at least as keen to win the cup as is
the Davis Cup Committee.
No. 3 — Let the Davis Cup team select its
own captain.
No. 4 — Let's go light on the optimism —
players, officials and tennis critics. There have
been too many Pollyannas in the past.
No. 5 — Stress the importance of the foot
fault rule and insist upon its observance.
No. 6 — Hammer into the heads of the
Davis Cup piayers and those youngsters who
are on the way up, the value of tactics and
psychology.
H T .4 4.1 Uni lln • rtf iKlC VDOr'c
I - LA.I Vi IV. --J-—
team be: "Attack! Attack! Attack!"
I believe that in the past some of our Davis
Cup teams have been coddled too much and
that not enough allowance has been made for
the varying personalities involved. What
might be good medicine for one man might
violently disagree with another.
We all want to bring the cup back, players
is well as the United States Lawn Tennis
Association; but I think it sometimes is for
gotten that the team members feel they have
fully as much at stake as the Davis Cup Com
«. opjrlght, m*. United Newennoert Mngezlne Corpoi
DONALD
BUDGE
Associated Press
Photo
BRYAN
“BITSY" GRANT
Acme
Photo
mittee. They don’t need any Simon Legree in
flannels to keep them in there doing their best.
Why not allow the members of the team
themselves to name the man who is to lead
them into battle? After all, the players are
going to spend six or eight weeks in close
daily contact. That is a stiff test of friendship,
so what's the matter with allowing the men
who are going to make the fight to pick the
man in whom they have confidence?
The captain should have about three
quarters of the voting power, I believe, when
the time comes to make the final selection as
to just which men are to play in the Davis
Cup singles and doubles. He should wait to
_L„... nUimre iMirfnrm in flip tniimH
V»*v -
ments abroad and take most careful note of
each man’s mental and physical condition at
the end of the Wimbledon championships.
This matter of mental attitude is very im
portant, even if a player's physical condition
is up to the standard.
Having done that, I think, the captain
should pick what appeared to him to be the
strongest possible team at that time, whether
those named were veterans or youngsters, had
had Davis Cup experience or not. A player
will get just about as much experience playing
in the big tournaments abroad The Queen's
Club and Wimbledon,- for example as he
will by playing in the Challenge Round.
Trusting I’m not speaking out of turn, I
believe there is such a thing as too much
optimism, and that our Davis Cup teams of
the last few years have been victims of it. We
atlon
have been too much inclined to discount the
excellence and strength of the winning Davis
Cup nations, in the conviction that anything
produced in the United States is superior to
that found anywhere else.
The responsibility for this rosy optimism
springs from a number of sources: The press,
the critics, the players themselves (though
it’s hard to tell why, after the last nine years!),
arid the Davis Cup Committee. Everybody
seems to lose sight of the fact that Lacoste,
Cochet, Borotra and Brugnon were great
players up to three or four years ago, and that
Fred Perry and Bunny Austin are great play
ers today, especially on their own courts.
For example, consider the attitude toward
WrmH — althnuah it has aDDlied to
the members of all our recent teams. Wood
has been expected to play far better than any
close study of his game or his record would
warrant. He is a fine player, but certainly not
the suiierman of the racquet that he is cred
ited with being. I f they would stop expecting
Wood to make shots that are too difficult to
get by Old Man Law of Averages, just that
much sooner would he develop into a sound,
orthodox tennis player, capable of winning
Davis Cup matches and coming through in a
pinch with a sound shot that would win for
him instead of a near-miracle shot that just
misses.
The foot-fault rule is one thing upon
which no two nations, and few individuals,
are in exact agreement, but its strict en
forcement in this country is too important
Associated Press Photo
to be overlooked. The breaking
of this rule has cost us dearly
in more than one international
match.
Americans have the best ser
vices in the world, and since
a fine service is a very decided
advantage, foreigners feel no
compunction whatever in en
forcing a rule that levels the
Americans down to their own
service efficiency. Don’t get
iHah it ic nPTPQoarv to
foot-fault to get the most out of your service.
Bill Tilden, John Doeg and Ellsworth Vines,
to mention only a few, serve equally well with
out breaking the rule. But because it is not
rigidly enforced in the United States, the
average American player is thrown completely
rtf Viic hv hnvinp manv foot-faults
called against him in foreign countries. As an
example, witness Sidney Wood, who was
penalized eighteen times in one match in
England two or three years ago.
I wonder whether the average person in a
tennis gallery realizes just how important a
part tactics play in tennis. I don’t believe
I ever really appreciated the value of cor
rect tactic* until 1 saw Big Bill Tilden in a
challenge round match against Jean Borotra
in 1930, in the Roland Garros Stadium.
Bill was behind, one set to two, and was
trailing at 2—4 in the fourth. Borotra was
superb that day, and his persistent storming
of the net. to finish off with brilliant, piercing
volleys, was rapidly heading Bill toward
I was sure Rill was in for a licking. He
just didn't seem able to get the ball out of
Borotra's reach, while Jean was supremely
confident, happy and not tired.
Borotra was serving in the seventh game of
the set, when things began to happen. 1 was
sitting beside the court and 1 could feel Bill
thinking! It was the most tense moment I
have ever experienced in tennis. Bill had to do
something. He did. and you could have flat
tened me with a feather. Bill started drop
shotting Borotra, the man who was without
a peer when at the net!
Poor Jean! He had been almost breaking
his neck from the start in his furious rushes
to gain his position at the net — and here
was Tilden pulling him in. But it is one
thing to go to the net — one is hitting down,
and hard; but to be forced in is decidedly
different, as you are compelled to hit up,
and softly. Bill's sudden change of tactics
completely broke up Jean's attack and his
nerves as well, and Bill went straight on from
there to victory'. It was only the wily tennis
brain of Tilden that pulled him through.
Tactics are 50 per cent psychology in tennis.
The man with the better knowledge of
psychology and of the moment to employ it
will usually win in a match between two play
ers who in other resjiects are in approximately
the same class.
Almost all players have a favorite passing
shot one which, if you don't watch care
fully, will win. But if you let them win several
(Continued on page 12)