National Traits in Lawn Tennis

I

THE authors of lawn tennis have much to their credit. They founded a pastime which permits men and women of all nationalities to meet in friendly competition under a common code of rules. But this was not their only benefaction to mankind. The game, by its popular vogue and catholicity, has provided a medium for physical and mental expression that is satisfying both to the individual and to the patriot. ‘Words but direct, example must allure,’ says Stirling. The athletic emancipation of women, one of the features of the present decade, has been hastened and nourished by lawn tennis, a game so happy in its scope for industry, movement, and grace. No invention could have been better timed. It arrived to give society of either sex not only exercise and health, but, as its cult developed, an art through which national characteristics could be exploited. The lawn-tennis court became an international arena; the language of the court assumed the power and utility of Esperanto; frontiers melted before the game; the pride of race and individuality was none the less stimulated.

Lawn tennis was first pursued on private English lawns by middle-aged people. Its original disciples had been addicted to rackets and real tennis, the royal and ancient game. They were men of part or whole leisure, and their womenfolk, praising Providence for providing an outdoor exercise more violent than croquet that could give them an athletic status equal to that held by their lords, embraced it, first, with curiosity and then with devotion. Croquet hoops and mallets were flung down, domestic lawns were bisected by nets; in some cases, where Nature interfered, noble oaks and elms were sacrificed. Lawn tennis spread, not with the violence and speed of the prairie fire, but gently and insidiously, like influenza. It. was a social diversion, frequently lampooned by Punch, never taken seriously by those who did not pursue it, never visualized as a world sport by those who did. Its first adherents were men of sedate habits and of muscles trained for games with standard and fixed styles. The feet were anchored for the service, the face of the racket was little more than half the size of the present-day weapon, the net was high and sagging, the balls were not always covered with cloth, the staple stroke was a slice as in tennis, and the side-line drive was unknown. The game was grafted on to ancient games by a conservative people. The prophets of the seventies might have seen in this very fact the germ of greatness; it was not detected until the Renshaw twins, with youth and supple limbs at their command, revealed the potentialities of a vigorous, competitive art.

The Renshaw brothers were the real fathers of lawn tennis as we know it to-day, and had they not accepted the faith, making converts by their personality and other champions by their example, it is conceivable that the pastime would have died a natural death, or at any rate have been in suspended animation. It may be noted in passing that the twins developed their art, not on a turf surface, but on a covered floor of tar asphalt. This fact was significant. The original nursery of the game in England was a private lawn, frequently mossy, generally clotted in the matter of grass roots; well mown, of course, but more like a Turkey carpet than the firm, resilient plane on which the modern game has been bred. The motto of the aboriginals was ‘safety first’; they had to dig the ball out of the ground. The gardener’s ideal of a lawn-tennis court in the eighties — and the first championship meetings at Wimbledon embraced it — was that honored in the college quadrangles at Oxford and Cambridge. When invading sight-seers asked for the recipe the answer would be, ‘Mow and roll every day for five hundred years.’

The English style was founded on such a surface; it may be said to have been handicapped by it ever since. Half a century ago the prevailing habit was to hit the ball from corner to corner — an almost interminable exchange; and for this custom the nature of the surface was the main cause. Ireland attained distinction because her countrymen — then, as now, iconoclastic — invented a running drive, a kind of forcing shot off a low ball. ‘Turf’ is a dialect word for peat, and many a court resembled an Irish bog. It was by perfecting a low running drive that Mr. W. J. Hamilton, one of a brilliant Dublin group, won both the English and the Irish championship, and it was another Irishman, Mr. J. C. Parke, whose powers of mobility on a wet court, developed on the Rugby football field, made him famous both in England and in Australia. Mr. Parke was not a greater player in the classical sense; his service was unprovocative; he had limitations as a volleyer. Leinster gave him his character; a stout arm and a stout heart won him his victories.

But I would return to my point, which is that surface, like ‘dress Davy,’has made all the difference. Had lawn tennis been pursued only on lawns its career would undoubtedly have been cabined and confined. It would never have become a world pastime, for the reason that grass courts are unknown in many countries. Save in England and Ireland there are no turf courts in Europe, and yet the game flourishes throughout the length and breadth of the Continent. I am writing this article at Cannes, almost within a stone’s throw of the original outdoor court in France. Constructed of a binding sand, extracted from the Estérel Mountains, a beautiful feature of the Côte d’Azur, it was laid down in the garden of the Beau Site Hôtel in the early eighties in order that the Renshaw brothers, wintering abroad, might pursue their hobby. This court has become famous, not only by virtue of its history, but because almost every champion, including several champions from America, has played on it. After Cannes came other courts of a similar substance on the Riviera. The game had already been practised on covered courts in Paris; other capitals met a growing demand. Stockholm, illustrating Swedish enterprise, built quite a flock of covered courts, installing artificial light to defy the winter.

It was natural that Continental players should develop at a greater speed than those from England, where climate and surface checked incubation. It is true that for nearly a decade no really first-class player from France emerged, and the British pilgrim of first-class rank could generally anticipate victory at the summer tournaments which he visited. This ascendancy, appearing to ignore the incidence of surface, was only temporary. It was due partly to the colonizing faculty of the British, permitting them to impose their coolness and phlegm in a new environment, and partly to the relative inexperience of their opponents. The strokes of Max Decugis and André Gobert were more fluent and pleasing to the eye than those of men who beat them at first in actual match play; the will to win, dominant in the visitor, was absent. As soon as it was cultivated — and its growth was essential — the tables were turned. The benefits of surface, of quicker footwork, of a firm eye, were realized. The Dohertys, with their outstanding genius, could always beat the best Frenchmen, Germans, or Belgians of their age just as they beat, save on one or two memorable occasions, the best Americans. But the Dohertys had classical strokes and a temperament far above the average. They stood out in their epoch just as the Renshaws stood out before them and Mlle. Lenglen and Tilden after them. They betrayed national characteristics as other champions betrayed them, but they were thrown up, almost in splendid isolation, by the evolution of time.

No one country can claim or can expect a monopoly for such phenomena. It might be assumed that either France, which has produced Suzanne Lenglen, or America, which has provided Helen Wills, would have supplied successors or antitypes of these fine stroke players. Both have inspired the youth of their respective countries; they have fired a trail among the girlhood of Europe and America and of countries beyond which is still blazing; and if one is now a professional and the other remains an amateur the value of their personalities in developing women’s play cannot be overestimated. And yet, strange to say, neither France nor America has produced the player who is likely to be regarded in the near future as an even greater artist than either of these two.

The distinction will probably fall on Spain, for in Señorita Elia de Alvarez, the most brilliant exponent of the modern game, has been discovered a girl of twenty-two who with grace of movement combines a vigorous stroke and an intuitive skill which make her the most fascinating player to watch the world has ever produced. Though born of Spanish parents she has spent nearly all her life outside Spain — in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, and England, migrating from place to place with her parents. This movement has nourished her versatility; she is adept at languages and at many other sports besides lawn tennis. It has also deepened her character; she would be much less a great artist if she had spent her life in Spain. National traits — fluency of movement, impetuosity, dignity of carriage — are visible, but she has developed mentally in excess of her sisters because of her contact with the outer world; not otherwise would she have attained the self-reliance which is at once a feature and a force in her lawn tennis.

II

During the half century of lawn tennis the sceptre of power may be said to have passed to five countries in turn. It may not be unprofitable to note these cycles in sequence and to examine their causes. England was naturally preëminent in the first epoch. Her natives had founded the game, competition from outside was limited and fugitive; laurels were collected more or less automatically. But the strokes and strategy of Englishmen had been developed and intensified by international matches with Ireland. When the Renshaws retired, the English group surrounding them missed their inspiration, and since most of its members were middle-aged the standard of play was inclined to fall. Irish enterprise and audacity revived it, and Dublin provided in Dr. Joshua Pim a champion whose game had the hall mark of genius. The matches for the championship at Wimbledon between Pim and Wilfred Baddeley crystallized two schools — the cautious, calculating methods of the Englishman and the robust, adventurous, devil-may-care style of the Irishman. The latter did not always prevail, but its greater brilliance was undeniable, and when Pirn was at his best he was virtually unplayable. It is scarcely exaggerating to say that he could hit a dollar note placed anywhere on the court. When America saw Dr. Pim in the early Davis Cup matches, he had emerged from retirement and was but a shadow of the real champion. Both Pim and Baddeley were all-court players; they had absorbed the art of the Renshaws, though neither had the rapidity of execution of William or the meticulous accuracy of Ernest.

Evolution had been at work steadily. The Renshaws had to create strokes — there had been none to guide them; their successors got the benefit of precedent and the encouragement of example. As the Renshaws began England’s supremacy, so the reign of the Dohertys ended it. These famous brothers lacked the fire and physique of some of their predecessors and many of their successors, but they resisted all comers for ten years. An occasional defeat in the doubles at Wimbledon only served to emphasize the volume of their triumphs. They were the ‘ princes charming’ of the lawn-tennis court, and the grace of their deportment and the serenity of their temper have never been equaled. Yet, perfect stylists as they were, with no vulnerable spot in their armor, it may be doubted whether the increased pace and tension of tennis in recent years would not have exposed their physique to an insupportable strain. It is true that they won matches in the heat and tumult of America against America’s picked men, but the American players at the beginning of the century were not so versatile in attack or so powerful in service and drive as their successors of the last decade. It has been said that, given present-day conditions, the Dohertys would have mastered them just as they mastered the googly service of Dwight Davis and Holcombe Ward when they first encountered it.

The game, however, has moved forward with each succeeding decade. The advance may not be detected as and when it occurs; the faithful historian in looking back is conscious of it. In women’s play progress has been well-nigh revolutionary even within the last fifteen years. The champions of the past, could they be restored at their best, would have no chance against the champions of the present. Improved equipment, changes in dress, greater opportunities for practice, the stimulant of publicity, have all promoted progress.

Australasia was the third country to furnish the world’s champions. Norman Brookes for two years and Anthony Wilding for four won the title at Wimbledon, and between them these two envoys carried off the Davis Cup. The first was an artist, unmatched in volleying skill, the second an athlete, wielding drives sustained in vigor by inexhaustible stamina. Both possessed the confidence and courage indigenous to their respective countries in sport, and though they differed as much in personality as in the methods of their play they enjoyed the common heritage of a forceful character.

Norman Brookes also had the asset of surprise attack. Britons and Americans were in the lead; no other country was deemed ripe enough to dispute their claim. Norman Brookes was the dark horse of 1905. His destructive service and magical volleying dominated Wimbledon of that year; his path to the title was only checked by II. L. Doherty, who stood out of the championship until the challenge round. When Brookes returned to England two years later his service was strengthened materially. A great English driver, S. H. Smith, had demonstrated that a break delivery, however sinister, could be smothered at birth if the proper weapon was employed. The Brookes of 1907 had added length and pace to his service, qualities which strengthened his complementary volleying and added to the total of his victims.

Wilding’s physique came from New Zealand; his game developed in England, where he graduated at Cambridge University. His was the sturdiest defense to a volleying assault I have ever seen. Could he have volleyed more himself, like W. M. Johnston, he would have been irresistible throughout his epoch. Without the generalship of Brookes, Beals Wright, or Tilden, he beat McLoughlin at Wimbledon in 1913 by a superb display of robust and coördinated driving. Incidentally he exposed the limitations of McLoughlin’s art, forestalling R. N. Williams in that achievement.

There is no poison which has not its antidote. Provided the sting of McLoughlin’s service could be extracted, there was just a chance for his opponent. And in the case of Norman Brookes, as both H. L. Doherty and Tilden proved, the most disturbing reply to his volleying campaign was a shrewd and well-placed lob. There has been no last word in lawn tennis yet; therein lies its compelling interest—the Roland has been awaiting the Oliver. The first volleyer of all, Spencer Gore, was defeated in his second year because his adversary conceived the notion of raising the ball over his head; and at the last American championship final at Forest Hills the volleying skill of Borotra, which had defeated both Johnston and Richards, was curbed by the calculating tossing of Lacoste.

The supremacy of America in the lawn-tennis world — a supremacy that she still holds, though with less assurance of its continuity — did not assert itself until the last decade. Previous to the Great War no American had succeeded in winning the men’s championship at Wimbledon, and if the Davis Cup had been won back in 1913 the margin of victory was perilously small, while the failure which had attended three excursions to Australasia confirmed the view that Americans were more formidable in their own country than abroad. In the fifty months of the Great War the closure of competitive sport in Europe was complete; in America the interregnum was much briefer. When the Armistice was declared all nations, irrespective of side, reacted from the strain and concentration of arms; they turned with avid relief to the peaceful exercise of sport. America enjoyed this reaction like other belligerents, but she had the advantage of the shorter break, and her champions, when they emerged, were found to be in a higher class than their contemporaries. This was a natural and inevitable development; it was assisted by the more intensive organization of the game in the United States, an organization which stimulated and enriched the game in colleges and schools and did not neglect the opportunity for expansion in public parks.

Apart from these general agencies, all working to vivify American sport, the competition between the East and the West, as between England and Ireland a generation earlier, provoked a public interest which spurred on the players, increasing alike their skill and their zeal. Without connecting poles the current cannot circulate. History has shown that countries increase their lawn-tennis standard and prestige if they can provide not only one champion of high calibre but another of equal or nearly equal strength who can extract the best from his opponent. This matter of vis-à-vis has been paramount. The annual matches between Willie Renshaw and H. F. Lawford brought fame to the old centre court at Wimbledon; they advertised lawn tennis in the early stages as nothing else could. If in the next decade Wilfred Baddeley had not been able to cross swords with Joshua Pim, the slump in British lawn tennis after the Renshaws retired would have been disastrous. Similarly the matches between R. N. Williams of the East and M. E. McLoughlin of the West gave a fillip to American lawn tennis of a value which can only now be estimated. Later came the sequence of brilliant battles between W. T. Tilden of the East and W. M. Johnston of the West. These championship encounters focused interest throughout the whole country, but their interest was not confined to the day of the fight. The champions’ prowess both at home and abroad was an educational factor of ever-deepening force. For six consecutive years Tilden was invincible in Davis Cup and championship matches — a unique record and much more impressive because other countries, like America, have been expanding their personnel, and the quality of opposition brought against the American champion was of the strongest.

William Tilden has brought to the lawn-tennis court physical strength and mental equipment of no ordinary pattern. These qualities have assisted his progress; without them he could not have maintained his remarkable record. But although Tilden’s personality is distinctive he has not climbed the ladder of fame without absorbing the cumulative lessons of succeeding ages. That is to say, his game has been developed and perfected after a natural and orderly evolution. Tilden’s rise was not meteoric; he had to serve a stern apprenticeship; he had to pass through the mill. He had also, before his victorious career began, to reassert the orthodoxy of the all-court game. He had to restore ‘Larnedism’ to American lawn tennis. He had to prove that solid and lasting success can only be constructed on a foundation of sound driving strokes.

The storming volleyer, novel and daring in his methods, had his triumphs both in America and in Europe, but his reign was threatened and could be interrupted by accurate ground strokes confidently and coolly controlled. The dynamic service of Gobert, covered by volleys of wonderful variety and finish, was challenged and ultimately frustrated by Wilding’s piercing drives. McLoughlin found his match in Larned and then in Williams. Brookes was beaten by H. L. Doherty at Wimbledon and by Tilden at Auckland, and Borotra finds in Lacoste the most disturbing parry to his game.

Tilden has drunk deeply at the fountain of experience. A scientific student of the game, not only has he relied on his own contemporaries for the advancement of his own game, but unconsciously the virtues of former champions have been transmitted to him through the medium of his older adversaries. But, great player as Tilden is, the greatest of his epoch, he does not necessarily typify the highest potential art of the game. The future may have something greater still in store. Tilden’s stature has assisted his service; his long stride, apparently fortified against fatigue, is trained to produce the fiercest drives. But even a Goliath can have his limitations; the sling of a lighter and more acrobatic David can be deadly.

III

We have seen that no one nation can hold indefinitely the crown of lawn tennis. The emblem of power in half a century has already crossed the Seven Seas and back again. The very catholicity of the game, its extension in hidden places, its relation to psychological factors beyond the control of organizers however zealous, make the championship breed uncertain; and of course political and industrial unrest can affect the destiny of any sport. The future of France on the lawn-tennis court has never been brighter; she has champions of youth, genius, and ambition. But the rise of France to the highest peak is no sudden, unsuspected movement. Her recent triumphs were preceded by many disappointments, even by an almost fatalistic feeling that her countrymen could never achieve signal success abroad. When the French first came to Wimbledon they used to cast wry faces at a slippery, oily surface upon which neither their feet nor their strokes would go right. Now the leading Frenchmen recognize that a turf court is the championship court par excellence; it responds to their delicacy of touch, it extracts the refinements of their game, it ministers to their buoyant nature. It was almost the same thing when the French first went to America. They were disturbed by the American ball, disconcerted by the speed and ‘devil’ of the American attack. But their enthusiasm and resource were such that they came again each year with strengthened hopes and sharper weapons. If Mlle. Lenglen could hold undisputed sway in the women’s realm — and her career was a great incentive to her brothers — they did not see why Frenchmen should not triumph as well. The first All-French final at Wimbledon was almost certain to bring another, and it may be doubted whether the last All-French final has been seen at Forest Hills. The French morale has been strengthened miraculously within the last five years. It is not at all surprising that the French should play lawn tennis well. The game lends itself directly to their mood for motion, their gift for swift repartee, their democratic bent. But before the war it was this vivacity which seemed to check their progress, robbing them of the highest honors. Perhaps the war chastened them; at any rate it has deepened their power of concentration and removed some of the insularity which handicapped their progress.

Evolution is taking place in other countries. The enterprise and adaptability of the Japanese, their philosophic outlook and their stamina, have made them ardent disciples. They have already proved their capacity on foreign soil; they need very little more before they are on a level with nations of greater experience. In Czechoslovakia, Italy, Spain, and Scandinavia the volume of lawn tennis has increased with unyielding vigor. The leading players of these countries, as of others, are now mixing freely with the other nationals of Europe. Each year their standard is improving; each year the disparity of form is less marked. In India the same progress is apparent, delayed only by the wide distance which separates one tournament from another — a handicap that aviation will no doubt remove in the near future. In South America the game is marching boldly forward, favored by climate and material resources.

The surprising thing is that in all these countries a common code of rules and etiquette should prevail. Literally there has been no legislative schism. The professional exhibition match has come to America and may be paraded elsewhere, but this excursion is at present sporadic and there is no evidence that amateurism, upon which the game was founded and through which it has been propagated, will not maintain undisputed sway. More professional instructors are required and will doubtless be provided, but they will come in the main to teach the game and not to exploit it for personal or selfish gain. Originally a domestic pastime, lawn tennis owes its wide expansion to the cardinal virtue that it is essentially a family and social recreation. It is a game for all the peoples. A spectacle it must be; its popularity as such has grown in proportion to the number of persons who actually pursue it.