The New French Champion of 1921 who defeated Andre Gobert most unexpectedly in the challenge round, is an interesting player of the mental type. He is anything but French in his game. His style is rather that of the crafty American or English player than the hard-hitting Frenchman.
Samazieuhl is an exponent of crafty patball. His service is a medium pace slice, well placed but not decisive. His ground strokes are a peculiar stiff arm chop varied at times with an equally cramped drive, yet his extreme mobility allows him to cover a tremendous amount of court, while his return, which is well disguised, is capable of great angles. His volleying is reliable but lacks severity and punch. He makes excellent low volleys, but cannot put away shoulder high balls while his overhead is not deadly.
It is Samazieuhl's clever generalship and his ability to recover seemingly impossible shots that win matches for him. He is a comparatively new tournament player, and should improve greatly as he gains confidence and experience.
R. DANET
One of the most interesting young players in France is R. Danet, who has come to the fore in the past few years. This boy, for he is little more, has a hard hitting brilliant game of great promise.
His service is a speedy slice. He drives with great speed, if as yet with none too much accuracy, off both fore and backhand. His net attack is very severe while overhead he is deadly. His speed of foot is remarkable, and he is a very hard worker. His limitations are in his lack of a set plan of attack and the steady adherence to any given method of play. He throws away too many easy chances, but this will correct itself as time goes on and Danet has fought through more tournaments. I consider him a player of great promise.
Max Decugis and Brugnon, the two remaining members of the 1920 Davis Cup team of France, present totally different types. Decugis, crafty, cool, and experienced, is the veteran of many long seasons of match play. He is a master tactician, and wins most of his matches by outgeneralling the other player. Burgnon is brilliant, flashy, hard hitting, erratic, and inexperienced. He is very young, hardly twenty years of age. He has a fine fore-hitting style and excellent net attack, but lacks confidence and a certain knowledge of tennis fundamentals. A few years' experience will do wonders for him.
The French style of play commends itself to me very highly. I enjoy watching the well-executed strokes, beautiful mobile footwork of these dashing players. It is more a lack of dogged determination to win, than in any stroke fault that one finds the reason for French defeats. The temperamental genius of this great people carries with it a lack of stability that can be the only explanation for the sudden crushing and unexpected defeats their representatives receive on the tennis courts.
I was particularly impressed during my visit to France by the large numbers of children playing tennis and the style of game displayed. The sport shows a healthy increase and should produce some fine players within the next ten years.
Keen competition is the corrective measure for temperamental instability and with the advent of many new players in French tennis I would not be surprised to see a marked decrease of unexpected defeats of their leading players.