New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-04
COURT TENNIS
DEMANDS LIMIT
OF VERSATILITY
Jaw Gould Is to Defend
Long-Held Title in Bos-
ton This Week.
HARVARD MAN MOST
PROMISING BIDDER
Richard Gambrill Likely to Put
Up Great Fight to Reach
the Final Round.

Oddly enough, while approximately
$4,000. 900 has been spent on building
new tennis courts since Jay Gould won
his first American championship. IN
1906, only at Harvard have any play
ers been developed of class that IN
dicatea he may ultimately be dethroned
as the best amateur in the game. II
is not likely that this will occur this
week in the national amateur cham
pionship that begins tomorrow at the
Boston Tennis and Racquet Club. for
title holders Of his calibre are not
usually victims Of first assault. The
worlds phenomenal champion is no
longer. however, in a class quite by
himself.
Gould, when he made his first essay
for the British amateur title in 1905
lost in the challenge round TO the hold
er, Eustacc II. Miles. But he beat him
decisively the next year and whenever
they have met since, although Miles
was not satisfied with the result OF the
London final and followed Gould TO
New York to get another chance ~
Kim in the American championship.
Joshua Crane, of Boston, and Charles
+. Sands. of New York, both former
champions of America, were the best
players in this country the year Gouid
broke into the game. with Pierre Lor-
lizard, jr., the best of the youthful set.
This is the precise situation to-day,
barring the Harvard candidates.
Richard Gambrill and Hewitt Nor
gan are the representatives Of the
Crimson in the event, the first meet
ing c. T. Russell, of Boston, to-mor-
row, and Hewitt Morgan having bye.
Both are masters of the game mental
ly as well as physically, for otherwise
they could never become great players.
Court tennis demands as much brain
work as chess, as much mind concen.
tration as golf, as much fineness and
dexterity as fencing with duelling
swords. plus the agility of n clnder
path Splinter, the footwook of lawn
tennis and the muscles needed for a
home run at baseball Besides all this,
no one may excel at court tennis who
does not love its historic and romantic
past.
Harvard is the only American uni
versity to foster court tennis. The
courts were opened in Randolph Hall,
Cambridge, the year Gambrlll and Nor
gan entered as freshmen. They are
now seniors, but they had the adYan-
tage of having mastered the rudIments
of the old game before entering the
Both have great facility,
but the strongest hopes are centred In
the chances Of Gambrill. Should he
reach the challenge round this year,
many believe that in 1916 he may
wrest the title from Gould.
Jay Gould had no more advantages
in his bantling days at the game than
Gambrill. Gould's advance at the be-
ginning was due to the plans laid by
his father, George Gould, and to !.
Suffern Taller.
Taller is Il court tennis player by
inheritance as well as prediction, for
his family was among the charter
members of the New York Racquet
and Tennis Club while in co-partner-
ship with the late j. II. Smith, the
"Silent Man of Wall Street" he built
the Tuxedo Court and was instrument
tai in bringing there for exhibition
games and to give advice to the club
men such noted foreign tennis play
ers as Miles, the amateur, and the pro-
fessionals, Ferdinand Garcin, Punch"
Fairs, Peter Latham and Robert Moore.
Bruce Price, another Tuxedo man.
was the architect of Georgian Court
and joined Taller and Smith in urging
george GOulu 10 Dulld tennis ana
racquet annex. This trio, with Alfred
Seton, used the court more often than
the two Gould boys, Kingdom ard Jay,
at first, for the youngsters At that
time were polo enthusiasts. With a
court at hand and the services Of
Frank Forester available as coach tor
the asking, Jay Gould soon turned to
court tennis and rapidly became prof
cient.
Natural aptitude for the game Is
what has made young Jay O worlds
champion. The fact that he was born,
so to speak, with a silver racquet in
his mouth, would not alone have made
him famous at the nets. His brother,
Kingdom, for example, never cared to
excel at tennis, and neither of the
brothers ever played racquets, so that
the bricks have fallen from the walls
of the racquet court and grass grows
In its corners. Jay Gould, however,
soon became & tennis bug" and, after
learning all that Forester. Standing
and Petit could teach him, he alb
sorbed extra polish from such visitors
as Garcin, Fairs and Latham.