Some Defects in Tennis	Browse Other Pages Homepage A Viewpoint on the Game How It Began A Viewpoint on the Game 2 A Viewpoint on the Game 3 Concentration; Practice Condition, Physical and Mental Keep Your Eye on the Ball Footwork and Weight Control Women's Tennis The Grips The Service The Drive The Chop and the Slice The Volley The Subtle Shots Courage Your Opponent's Weaknesses General Tactics Outside Conditions Pressure on Your Opponent Doubles and Mixed Doubles The Coaching Job Legendary Tennis Players Olympic Tennis Does Youth Rule Tennis Hall of Fame Amateurism to Open Tennis Some Defects in Tennis Doping Olympic Review Technology and Sport The Slice Service Flat Serve The American Twist The Drive The Backhand Drive Drive - The Main Uses The Volley Net Position The Volley Position The Overhead Smash The Half-Volley The Drop Shot The Mechanics of the Slice The Main Uses of a Slice The Grips Doubles and Mixed Doubles To Open the Court Doubles In Europe and US Legendary Tennis Players (1940's) Questions in Australian Tennis History of Australian Tennis History of Australian Tennis 2 History of Australian Tennis Players Women's Tennis in Australia Australian Tennis: Nature Ages of Tennis Players The Careers of Women Players
	He game of lawn tennis has attained a degree of popularity and reached a perfection that its inventor and early players could hardly have dreamed of. Competing as it did from the start with so many games of long-tried popularity and admitted excellence, the utmost that could reasonably have been looked for was that it should a little more than hold its own. The reality, it is needless to say, has far surpassed the expectation. Not only has lawn tennis far outstripped in popular esteem the kindred games of racquets and court tennis, but it has in less than fifteen years almost reached the level of such national pastimes as baseball and cricket. Its growth has been really marvelous. In England it even now disputes the palm with cricket. In America it has spread from east to west and from north to south, till it has made its presence felt in almost every State and province from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, so startling has been its progress and so assured is its future that a shrewd observer expresses his confident belief that in a short time it will have usurped the place now held by baseball. As the game has increased in favor, so it has improved. The tennis of a dozen years ago bears about the same relation to the tennis of to-day that modern baseball bears to ancient rounders. The early tennis players would be altogether at the mercy of the Renshaws and the Hamiltons; as completely so as would be a village baseball nine in the hands of the New Yorks or the Bostons. But, splendid game that it is, tennis is as yet by no means perfect. Its highest perfection will doubtless not be reached for many years to come. In the meantime its friends can do it no better service than to point out wherein, in their opinion, it falls short of what it might and ought to be. If it has spots and blemishes the finger should be placed upon them. Tennis is pre-eminently a game of skill. In perhaps no other outdoor game should chance count for so little and skill for so much. By this, of course, it is not meant that the element of luck is altogether absent. It is admitted on all hands that lucky chances are and always must be its inseparable incident. But this chance element is comparatively of small amount, and need not be seriously considered. In contriving rules for a game like this one especial object should be kept in view, Rules should be so framed as to bring skill to a maximum and reduce chance to a minimum. This is self evident, in so far as they follow this guiding principle they will be a success; in so far as they depart from it they will fail. Judged by this standard the rules of tennis will, in many essentials, be found wanting. The system of scoring is, to the last degree, arbitrary and irrational. It is in direct conflict with the fundamental principles of the game. In theory it is illogical; in practice it works injustice. Instead of lessening chance, its necessary effect is to greatly increase it. The game of tennis may, for present purposes, be sufficiently described as the hitting of a ball over a net and within a certain definite boundary by players numbering either two or four, of whom half stand on one side of the net and half on the other. Whoever fails so to hit the balls suffers a loss; whoever so hits it that his adversary cannot send it back achieves a success. It would seem, therefore, to be a reasonable or rather a necessary inference that whoever has been the most often successful should be the winner, and whoever has failed the most often should be the loser. In fact, the score is kept on quite a different principle. A and B begin to play. Each wins two strokes, and gets credit for them. So far all is well, but A wins two strokes more and the play is temporarily suspended. A’s four points are now transformed into a so-called “game.” B’s are wiped off the. score entirely. It matters not how hard he may have worked to get them, nor how richly they may be deserved: for any practical purpose, or at any rate to the extent of directly affecting the game, they might as well never have been won at all, Play being resumed, B wins four successive points. He, in his turn, is given a game, but inasmuch as he has not been credited with his two points won on the previous game he is no better off than his adversary, though in fact he has outplayed him in the ratio of six to four. The two players have bent their energies to the attainment of one single object. B has attained that object the more often; yet the result is that he is no farther advanced than his rival. If the games were to go on as they have begun, they might continue through all eternity, neither winning, yet one of them countless millions ahead of the other. A and B, however, proceed with their play till at length A has won six games and B four. A has won the majority of games, but not necessarily the majority of strokes. At this stage of the game A’s six games are transformed into what is called a “set.” B, on the other hand—who, it is to be remembered, may have won a majority of the strokes—has his games cancelled. He has nothing to show for all his work, though, in fact, he ma have been the more successful. A is well on the road to victory, though in fact he may have been outstripped in the race. Another set being played, B wins six games, his adversary none. In this set he has won all the games and a large mafar he has won a majority of the games, jority of the strokes. On the whole, thus almost certainly a total majority of the strokes, and very possibly a majority of the strokes in each set. Yet the result is that each of the players has won a set. The third set is won by A, 6-4, and the case stands as follows: A has won the match by two sets to one. But B has won fourteen games to A’s twelve, probably more points in the aggregate, and possibly more in each set. Expressed briefly and in tennis language, the great defect in the scoring system may be said to be that one game counts as much and no more than another, and that one set counts just the same as another set. This is grossly! not to say manifestly, unfair. Equality in games is right when accompanied with equality of strokes won. If A wins a game by four strokes to none, and B another game, four strokes to two, why should B’s game count as much as A’s? On the first game he is four strokes behind, on the second only two strokes ahead. Left behind at the start, he has not, as yet, equalized matters; he has merely reduced his opponent’s lead from four to two. For this he should get credit, but for no more. Just think of a shooting match conducted on the same principle! Suppose A and B fire a certain number of shots, as the result of which A scores twelve points to B’s five. They then change targets, and B wins by twelve points to ten. A third firing ends the same way. In all, A has scored thirty-two points to his opponent’s twentynine. What would a rifleman say if told that A was the winner? It will, of course, be said that if one player wins useless strokes in one game his competitor will likewise do so in another; and that thus, in the end, the losses will be evenly distributed. This is but partially true. Both will suffer from the operation of the rules, and if they only play long enough the chances are that both will suffer about alike. But not in one case out of ten will an exact balance be struck. A remedy for this evil can easily be devised. All that is necessary is to follow out the principle that a stroke once won entitles its winner once for all to a certain something that shall never be taken from him. Let each server have a fixed number of services, as for instance six. Let each stroke won count a point, and let the match be awarded to the player first winning the number of points agreed on. Such a scheme will secure more perfect justice. Home