As we take our places, the scorer calls, "Two games all." Anderson plays up well, and wins the next game, and still another. The doughty Englishman is getting beaten; he is playing carelessly. But see! It is very plain that he recognizes the fact that the games are going on too fast, for as soon as he learns that the score is four to two in Anderson's favor, his play begins to improve. He wins the next four games in succession, and so wins the set. And right well did he play.
It is difficult to say wherein lies his great excellence. It is not in his "service." Service is all very well, and it is very useful to have a good service, especially when playing against indifferent antagonists; but among the best players service does not count for much. The "return" is of very much more importance, if for no other reason than that one has many more balls to return than to serve. In the first place, you should make certain that your ball is going over the net. Youth is ambitious, and ambition every now and then gets a fall; and so the young player who tries to just skim the top of the net every time is very apt to drive his ball into instead of over the net. It is much better to send even the easiest kind of a ball for your adversary to return, for there is always a chance of his foot slipping, or something of the kind; or perhaps he will be ambitious, and drive the ball with great skill and precision into the middle of the net. The English player returned his balls very closely over the net, but they always went over, and doubtless his accuracy in that respect is the result of long practice.
Another point in which he excelled was the skillful manner in which he placed the ball close to the side lines in the back court. This is very pretty work, but it is also dangerous, for it must always be remembered that there is not a hair's-breadth between a "good" ball and a bad one, between just in court and just out. One is success, and the other failure. For young players there are many opportunities of placing a ball out of the opponent's reach without playing it right up to the base line or side lines of the court. In tennis, as in other things, a middle course is safest for beginners.
Although lawn tennis has sprung rapidly into favor, it is still but a new game in this country. It takes several seasons' play for a person to become a first-rate player. By the time most of my readers are old enough to take part in a public tournament, some of them will probably play better than the best players of to-day. As time goes on, the standard of the game grows higher. The best players to-day are men, and they did not have the great advantage of beginning to learn tennis when they were boys.
But it is not only a boys' game; it is quite as suitable for girls, and many girls and grown ladies play very well, in spite of the man who said in an article on the subject not long ago that all ladies were "duffers" at tennis. If some of our lady players were to express their opinions of that man, he would not be flattered by them, even if the ladies did not call him slang names.
In New York and other large cities there are winter tennis clubs, to which both ladies and gentlemen belong. Very cold work, perhaps you think, with snow on the ground, and the thermometer somewhere near zero; but indeed they care nothing for that. What are snow-storms and chilling winds to them when they are safely under cover in some hall that they have hired for one or two afternoons a week? That is how tennis is played in winter, and if it should be called floor tennis rather than lawn tennis, the game is the same, and the enjoyment perhaps as great as in the summer game.
But tennis is, after all, a summer game. Winter has its own sports and pastimes—skating, coasting, sleighing, and the gymnasium—to which my readers will devote their hours of recreation. So at the first flurry of snow they will hang their rackets as trophies over the mantel, and leave lawn tennis to the enthusiasts until the warm sun and soft rains of spring shall have spread over the court a carpet of fresh green grass.