Part 9 (1/2)
The gallant death of Anthony F. Wilding in Flanders cost the game one of its greatest players, and finest men. I had not the pleasure of knowing Wilding personally yet I, like all the tennis world, felt a sense of keen personal loss at his heroic pa.s.sing.
Wilding was a man whose sterling qualities gave even more to the game than his play, and tennis is better for his all too brief career.
America lost some of its finest manhood in the War, and tennis paid its toll. No player was a more likeable personality nor popular figure among the rising stars than John Plaffman, the young Harvard man who gave his life in Flanders fields. I cannot touch on the many heroes who made everlasting fame in a bigger game than that which they loved so well. Time is too short. It is sufficient to know that the tennis players of the world dropped their sport at the call of War, and played as well with death as ever they did on the tennis court.
The War is over, please G.o.d never to return, and the men are back from their marvellous task. The game of War is done, the games of Peace are again being played. Tennis suffered the world over from war's blight, but everywhere the game sprang up in renewed life at the close of hostilities. The season of 1919 was one of reconstruction after the devastation. New figures were standing in prominence where old stars were accustomed to be seen. The question on the lips of all the tennis players was whether the stars of pre-War days would return to their former greatness.
The Champions.h.i.+p of the World for 1919 at Wimbledon was anxiously awaited. Who would stand forth as the s.h.i.+ning light of that meeting? Gerald Patterson, the ”Australian Hurricane,” as the press called him, came through a notable field and successfully challenged Norman Brookes for the t.i.tle. Gobert and Kingscote fell before him, and the press hailed him as a player of transcendent powers.
The Australian team of Brookes, Patterson, R. V. Thomas, and Randolph Lycett journeyed home to the Antipodes by way of America to compete in the American Champions.h.i.+p. Meanwhile R. N.
Williams, W. M. Johnston, and Maurice E. M'Loughlin were demobilized, and were again on the courts. The American Champions.h.i.+ps a.s.sumed an importance equal to that of the Wimbledon event.
The Australian team of Brookes and Patterson successfully challenged the American t.i.tle-holders in doubles, Vincent Richards and myself, after defeating the best teams in America, including W. M. Johnston and C. J. Griffin, the former champions.
Speculation was rife as to Patterson's ability to triumph in the Singles Champions.h.i.+p, and public interest ran high.
The Singles Champions.h.i.+p proved a notable triumph for W. M.
Johnston, who won a decisive, clear-cut, and deserved victory from a field never equalled in the history of tennis. Johnston defeated Patterson in a marvellous 5-set struggle, while Brookes lost to me in four sets. M'Loughlin went down to Williams in a match that showed the famous Comet but a faint shadow of his former self. Williams was defeated in sequence sets by me. The final round found Johnston in miraculous form and complete master of the match from start to finish, and he defeated me in three sequence sets.
Immediately following the champions.h.i.+p, the Australian-American team match took place. In this Brookes went down to defeat before Johnston in four close sets, while I succeeded in scoring another point by nosing out Patterson by the same score. Thus 1919 gave Johnston a clear claim to the t.i.tle of the World's Premier Tennis Player. The whole season saw marked increase in tennis interest throughout the entire world.
I have gone into more detail concerning the season of 1919 than I otherwise would, to attempt to show the revival of the tennis game in the public interest, and why it is so.
The evolution of the tennis game is a natural logical one. There is a definite cycle of events that can be traced. The picture is clearest in America as the steps of advancements are more definitely defined. It is from America that I am going to a.n.a.lyse the growth of modern tennis.
The old saying, ”Three generations from s.h.i.+rt sleeves to s.h.i.+rt sleeves,” may well be parodied to ”Three decades from ground strokes to ground strokes.” The game of tennis is one great circle that never quite closes. Progress will not allow a complete return to the old style. Yet the style, without the method of thirty years ago, is coming back in vogue. It is a polished, decorated version of the old type game. It is expanded and developed. History tells us that the civilization of the old Greeks and Romans held many so-called modern luxuries, but not the methods of acquiring them we have to-day. Just so with tennis; for the ground. stroke game was the style of the past, just as it will be the style of the future; but the modern method of making ground strokes is a very different thing from the one used by the old-time stars.
We are on the brink of the upheaval. The next few years will show results in the tennis game that were not thought of before the War. Tennis is becoming an organized sport, with skilled management. Modern methods, where efficiency is the watchword, is the new idea in tennis development.
Tennis is on the verge of the greatest increase in its history.
Never before has tennis of all types been so universally played, nor by such great mult.i.tudes. Its drawing power is phenomenal, hundreds of thousands of people witnessing matches the world over, and played during the season of 1920.
There are more players of fame now before the public than at any previous time since tennis became established. The standard of play of the ma.s.ses and quality of game of the stars have risen tremendously in the last decade. No less an authority than Norman E. Brookes, whose active playing days cover a period of twenty years, told me during the American Champions.h.i.+ps, last year at Forest Hills, that in his opinion the game in America had advanced fully ”15” in ten years. He stated that he believed the leading players of to-day were the superior of the Larneds, Dohertys, and Pims of the past.
The most remarkable advance has been along the lines of junior play: the development of a large group of boys ranging in age from thirteen to eighteen, who will in time replace the Johnstons, Williams, and M'Loughlins of to-day.
American tennis has pa.s.sed through a series, of revolutionary stages that have changed the complex of the game. English tennis has merely followed its natural development, unaffected by external influences or internal upheaval, so that the game today is a refined product of the game of twenty years ago. Refined but not vitalized. The World War alone placed its blight on the English game, and changed the even tenor of its way. Naturally the War had only a devastating effect. No good sprang from it. It is to the everlasting credit of the French and English that during those horrible four years of privation, suffering, and death the sports of the nations lived.
The true type of English tennis, from which American tennis has sprung, was the baseline driving game. It is still the same.
Well-executed drives, hit leisurely and gracefully from the base- line, appealed to the temperament of the English people. They developed this style to a perfection well-nigh invincible to cope with from the same position. The English gave the tennis world its traditions, its Dohertys, and its Smiths.
Tennis development, just as tennis psychology, is largely a matter of geographical distribution. This is so well recognized now in America that the country is divided in various geographic districts by the national a.s.sociation, and sectional a.s.sociations carry on the development of their locality under the supervision of the national body.
Naturally new countries, with different customs, would not develop along the same lines as England. America, Australia, and South Africa took the English style, and began their tennis career on the baseline game. Each of these has since had a distinct yet similar growth--a variance to the original style.
American tennis followed the English baseline style through a period that developed Dr. Dwight, R. D. Sears, Henry Sloc.u.m, and other stars. Tennis, during this time, was gaining a firm hold among the boys and young men who found the deep-driving game devoid of the excitement they desired. Americans always enjoy experiments, so the rising players tried coming to the net at any reasonable opening. Gradually this plan became popular, until Dwight Davis and Holcombe Ward surprised the tennis world with their new service, now the American twist, and used it as an opening gun in a net attack.
This new system gave us besides Davis and Ward, the Wrenn brothers, George and Robert, Malcolm Whitman, M. G. Chace, and finally Beals C. Wright. The baseline game had its firm adherents who followed it loyally, and it reached its crest in the person of William A. Larned. Previous to this time, speed, cyclonic hitting and furious smas.h.i.+ng were unknown, although rumours of some player named M'Loughlin combining these qualities were floating East from the Pacific Coast. Not much stock was taken in this phenomenon until 1908, when Maurice Evans M'Loughlin burst upon the tennis world with a flash of brilliancy that earned him his popular nickname, ”The California Comet.”
M'Loughlin was the turning-point in American tennis. He made a lasting impression on the game that can never be erased. His personality gained him a following and fame, both in America and England, that have seldom been equalled in the sporting world.
M'Loughlin was the disciple of speed. Cyclonic, dynamic energy, embodied in a fiery-headed boy, transformed tennis to a game of brawn as well as brains. America went crazy over ”Red Mac,” and all the rising young players sought to emulate his game. No man has brought a more striking personality, or more generous sportsmans.h.i.+p, into tennis than M'Loughlin. The game owes him a great personal debt; but this very personal charm that was his made many players strive to copy his style and methods, which unfortunately were not fundamentally of the best. M'Loughlin was a unique tennis player. His whole game was built up on service and overhead. His ground strokes were very faulty. By his personal popularity M'Loughlin dwarfed the importance of ground strokes, and unduly emphasized the importance of service.