The Art of Lawn Tennis

by William T. Tilden

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 analyse the growth of modern tennis.

The old saying, "Three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt 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 multitudes. 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 masses 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 Championships, 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 passed 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 association, and sectional associations 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 Slocum, 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.