Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII PLAYING THE GAME--SINGLES A GAME of tennis is not a mere measuring of the brute strength and speed of two players, but rather a measuring of heads. You get points and win the match by outwitting your opponent. The speed and the strength let you take advantage of the openings which you have thought out. Put a hard ball to the place where your adversary is not--that is tennis. And I think this principle is best worked out in the game of singles. Therefore I like singles; doubles are chummy and they are not nearly such hard work as singles, but I hold the joy of purely individual combat so highly that I consider singles as the only real game of tennis. It is in singles that one can work out plans of attack, can study the weaknesses of the opponent, can scheme to outwit, and then can execute the plans without the factor of a partner or an opponent's partner. It is wit versus wit, strength and speed versus strength and speed. You are equally responsible for your errors and your aces. Singles is the self-reliant game which brings out all that is in you, and I take it to be tennis. Doubles has none of these fascinating individual qualities. I suppose that games and even matches may be won by playing for your opponent to make errors. I prefer the positive game in which you do the scoring instead of trusting to errors from the other side of the net. One can never go far with the negative game; you cannot always take for granted that the opponent will net or out when goaded to frenzy by your inevitable, even easy, returns. It is a poor sort of a style to fall into. I always take the game to my opponent. Attack, attack, attack! The original attack is with the server; the server has the advantage of placing the first stroke. This is an'...