Publisher's Synopsis
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. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter ix. how lawn tennis compares with some other games. By Eustace Miles. Lawn Tennis has sometimes been despised by players of Cricket, as if it were mild pat-ball, suited only for ladies. Perhaps the word "tame" may sum up the condemnation as well as any other word, as implying that Lawn Tennis is easy, gentle, monotonous. Now, however much our verdict on Lawn Tennis must depend on the way in which it happens to be played, one fact is clear and undeniable, and this is that Lawn Tennis is not easy. I suppose every game looks easy when it is played really well, because every stroke is timed and judged so smoothly and surely: Billiards and Golf will serve as examples. But when you come to take up a racket and actually try to keep the ball within the side-lines and back-lines, and over the net--just over, or well over by a lob--you are struck by the need of accuracy and of restraint. In Racquets, Tennis, Fives, and Squash, there are the side-walls and back-walls to help; in Cricket there are boundaries; but in Lawn Tennis you must keep the ball in. Let anyone who imagines that the play requires no skill, see his opponent, a safe volleyer, up at the net while he himself has to make a backhand stroke from the left-hand corner of the court furthest away from the net. What nicety is required to pass the man at the net! Attempt to pass him down the side or across the court, and you run the risk of hitting the ball out; attempt to lob over his head and you run this same risk or else the risk of giving him a certain smash. So far from calling the stroke easy, you almost call it impossible. And yet it is frequently brought off with success. Pace, direction, length, height, concealment, all are required. The game is
