The Washington herald., 1917-03-18
Doyle Points Out
Causes Of Defeat
Local Player and Partner,
Alexander, Register Only
Eastern Win.

Conrad %. Doyiei premier tennis player
Of the District, has just returned from
Los Angeles, where he participated In the
intersectional matches held In that city
March to II, inclusive.
Doyle had the distinction Of assisting
Fred Alexander In winning the one regu-
lar match OF the schedule captured by the
Eastern players. In scoring this decisive
victory over the Atlantic seaboard ex-
perts. the Western contingent evened the
tennis honors staged between the two
sections during the past two years.
Last August, on the West Side grass
courts at Forest Hills, Long Island. the
East won six of the seven matches, los
ing only the mems doubles between John
ston and Griffin and Alexander and Behr.
To win this set the Western stars were
forced into an overtime set. In Los An
geles the matches were played on an
asphalt court. built expressly for the oc-
casion, and playing under this unfamiliar
condition, along with sevsral others, Is
the reason assigned by the Eastern play
ers for their defeat =.
Another condition with which the East
ern experts were confronted with that
affected their game was that the courts
were laid from east to west, instead Of
north and south, as is usually the case.
This laying out Of the courts in q direo-
ton Just opposite from what the Eastern
PLAYERS had been used to playing on put
a premium on the lobbying game. for in
the late afternoon the sun was In the
eyes Of the players in the east court.
Though the Western men played In the
main good tennis, the exhibition as a
whole was disappointing through the fact
that the Eastern players failed to make
an impressive showing against the speedy
Westerners. This was nothing more than
what was expected, however, when It Is
remembered that the Eastern players
were drawn from a section Of the coun-
try where the most unfavorably weather
conditions had prevailed for several
months and as result they were wholly
out Of condition and practice
Doyle's play throughout all his matches
electrified the large galleries which at
tended. In his singles match with Davis,
1t was not unlike their championship
match held on the clay courts at Cleve-
land last summer. The rangey westerner
mixed his high bounding service to the
left hand corner Of the court with a
sliding cut to the right hand corner in
such way as to keep Doyle on the de-
fensive In receiving 1t. This slowed up
Doyle's return of the service and enabled
Davis to take the net for the point
making kills.
At that Doyle won the second set and
on TWO occasions had the third set with
IN one point, only to lose out when Davis
return struck the top of the net ana
dropped over entirely out of the local
mans reach. -Four times in this set
at critical stages such balls saved Davis
the loss OF points. he finally taking the
set 8 to 6. Doyle's service was not
working at its best throughout the entire
match, but to ease. up to gain accuracy
would only have invited disaster, as
Davis was putting away even the fast
est serves on first returns by forehand
and backhand hay-maling drives.
speaking of the matches, Doyle said: II
was surprised in two instances. The first
was the fact that McLoughlin is far from
being the player he was of three wears
ago. While he played a game that some
times showed a fash of the McLoughlin
or several years ago. 1t was apparent to
all who saw HIM in action that any hopes
ne may entertain of again wrestling the
national honors are hardly to be realized
unless there Is a vast Improvement in his
game
My second surprise was the defeat Of
Miss BJurstedt pronounced Buusted by
the worlds champion, Mrs. May Sutton
Bundy. Mrs. Bundy still retains that
wonderful forehand drive which made
her famous, and 1t was this more than
any one other thing that finally landed
her winner over her sturdy Norwegian
opponent. With 6-3 against her in the
first set, Mrs. Bundy steadied and by
logged determination hammered away at
the rallys which seemed to last minutes,
until her opponent netted or outed the
ball for the loss OF the point The final
score Of rs and 81 shows somewhat the
nature of the games they played,
Il have no excuses, neither have any of
my teammates. for our defeat. We met
them under conditions that were entirely
new to US. and they met the Eastern
players at Long Island under conditions
that were new to them"