Lawn Tennis for Ladies

I hope and believe there are comparatively few people who will deny that athletics have done much for the health and mind of the modern girl. Exercise in some form or other is essential, and although I am quite ready to admit that games of the strenuous type, such as hockey and lawn tennis, can be and sometimes are overdone, yet the girl of to-day, who enters into and enjoys her game with scarcely less zest than her brother, is, I am convinced, better in health and happier in herself than the girl of the past generation.

What are the objections to games for girls? It seems to me the chief arguments against them are (1) that they are injurious to health; (2) that they impair the womanliness of woman; (3) that they mar her appearance. There may be something to be said for these contentions, but to my mind the pros materially outweigh the cons.

As to the injury to health, I deny that the case is proved. Indeed, evidence is rarely forthcoming. A delicate girl would probably become more delicate if she did not play games in moderation and take exercise. A friend of mine, an old doctor, told me the other day that in his youth the great plague of his life was the hysterical female. She would put in an appearance obtrusively at critical moments, and the anticipation of a scene always shadowed his arrangements. We rarely see this type now. Games have driven her away. The woman of the present generation is calm, collected, and free from emotional outbursts, and I believe that invigorating outdoor exercise is the chief cause. As to the second objection, the injury to the womanliness of woman, the answer depends on what is meant by the essential feature of "womanliness." I am afraid most people, including most men, say with Hamlet, "Frailty, thy name is woman." Womanliness to most men implies just frailty. They may perhaps call it "delicacy," and refer to the "weaker sex," but they mean that just as a man's glory is his strength, so a woman's glory is her weakness. They argue that you must impair this "weakness" by strenuous games. Is this true? Is the essential feature of a woman her weakness, just as the essential feature of a man is his strength, not merely physical, but mental and moral strength? I do not think so. Woman is a second edition of man, if you will; therefore, like most second editions, an improvement on the first! As Lessing puts it, "Nature meant to make woman its masterpiece." I well remember reading in a stirring narrative of the Indian Mutiny how a small party of English men and women were besieged in their quarters by a body of rebels, and while the men fought at the windows and doors the women were busy preparing ammunition, loading guns, bandaging wounds, and zealously cheering their war-worn defenders. When victory was at length achieved, the men asked themselves what would have happened but for the women. That, to my mind, was a picture of true "womanliness." Inferior in neither moral strength nor brain-power, the true woman is a helpmeet, or man's complement, giving him just the special form of strength in body and soul that he needs for the special experience.

If this, then, be "womanliness," can athletic games injure it? Do they spoil woman's usefulness as a woman? Do they damage her specific excellence? Do they tend to give her less endurance and nerve at critical times? I do not think so. Certainly lawn tennis does not. It is undoubtedly a strenuous game. There is more energy of physical frame, more brain-tax and will-discipline demanded in one hardly contested match than would suffice for a whole day's devotion to many other games. These requirements must help a woman, and in the possession of the qualities that games bestow athletic girls have a great pull over their sisters. If you are skilled and well drilled in discipline and sportsmanship, you are bound to benefit in the strife of the world. You are the better able to face disappointments and sorrows. For what do these strenuous games mean? Exercise in the open air, and exercise of a thorough and engrossing character, carried out with cheerful and stimulating surroundings, with scientific methods, rational aims, and absorbing chances. Surely that is the foundation of health culture.

The truth is, games have done for women what the dervish's subtle prescription did for the sick sultan. You perhaps remember the story. The sultan, having very bad health from over-feeding, sedentary habits, and luxurious ease, consulted the clever dervish. The dervish knew that it would be useless to recommend the sultan simply to take exercise. He therefore said to him, "Here is a ball, which I have stuffed with certain rare and costly medicinal herbs, and here is a bat, the handle of which I have also stuffed with similar herbs. Your highness must take this bat and with it beat about this ball until you perspire freely. You must do this every day." His highness acquiesced, and in a short time the exercise of playing bat and ball with the dervish greatly improved his health, and by degrees cured him of his ailment. Now, the tennis ball, to my mind, is stuffed with medicinal herbs which impart vigour and health to the player. The racket is possessed with a magic handle that has the power of quickening all the pulses of life in the plenitude of healthy vigour and wholesome excitement. In a medical book now before me the subject is put tersely thus: "Health and strength depend on rapid disorganisation, and rapid disorganisation depends on rapid exertion." Now, if this is true, what better and more interesting method of rapid exertion could be devised than a game of lawn tennis? Body and mind alike are wholly absorbed with the utmost rapidity, and there is no doubt the sense of refreshment is largely due to the rapid exertion demanded for the proper playing of the game. The medical book goes on to say, "During exertion we drink, as it were, oxygen from the air." This oxygen is the only stimulating drink we can take with lasting advantage to ourselves for the purpose of invigorating our strength. It is the wine and spirit of life, an abundance of which Nature has supplied us with ready-made. If you are low-spirited, drink oxygen. Take active exercise in the open air and inhale it. When next you see a lawn tennis player hard at a strenuous game, remember he or she is not necessarily overstraining or injuring health, but taking long, deep draughts of oxygen, imbibing the wine and spirit of life and laying up a store of vigour in readiness for the varied experiences of life.

Of all games lawn tennis is the one most suited to girls. Its claims are many and potent. It is strenuous and very hard work, but if not overdone it is not too taxing for the average girl. The exercise depends naturally upon the nature of the game played and the players engaged, from the championships to the garden-party patball game. The greater the knowledge of the game the greater the enjoyment and benefit derived from it, and there is really no reason why a girl should not excel at the game and therefore thoroughly appreciate and enjoy it. It is not physical and brute strength that is wanted so much as scientific application-finesse, skill, and delicacy of touch, all of which women are just as capable of exercising as men.

I am well aware that if you compare the lady champion of any year with any first-class man of the same year you will find a great disparity between their actual play. That is to say, the first-class man would be able to give the lady champion thirty or even more in order to have a close struggle. I have often played Mr. R.F. Doherty at the tremendous odds of receive half-forty, and have not always been returned the winner at that! I wonder sometimes why there is this pronounced discrepancy. Garments may make a little difference, but they do not account for it all. I think perhaps that man's stronger physique, naturally greater activity, and severer strokes prevent the girl from playing her own game. She has to be nearly always on the defensive, and thus plays with less accuracy and power.

Another claim lawn tennis has for girls is that it is not an expensive game. It is more or less within the reach of all, rich or poor. It can be played on one's own lawn or at any of the numerous clubs situated all over the world, or even nowadays in some of the public parks. The time required to play a game is not excessive. The implements, rackets, balls, nets, etc., are neither numerous nor prohibitive in price. The club subscriptions are moderate, and the actual expenses of pursuing the game are small as compared with golf.

WIMBLEDON, 1905: MISS MAY SUTTON WINNING THE LADIES' CHAMPIONSHIP FOR THE FIRST TIME. SHE BEAT MISS DOUGLASS IN THE CHALLENGE ROUND.

Then, again, lawn tennis is not difficult to learn, although of course by this I do not mean that it is an easy game to play well-far from it. But a rudimentary idea of it suffices to give any one a good deal of healthy exercise and enjoyment, and provided that one is keen and wishes to improve, and possesses what is known as a good games' eye, there is no reason why advance should not be rapid. It is also a pastime in which women can combine with and compete against men without in any way spoiling the game; and mixed doubles, to which I refer, are perhaps the most popular department with the average spectator. I think I am not wrong in saying that there is no other game at the present time in which this combination of the sexes does not tend to minimize the enjoyment of the player and the interest of the spectator. A mixed foursome at golf is poor sort of fun for the man, unless the ladies are quite first-class; the game is rather spoilt for him. Mixed hockey is an abomination; splendid sport absolutely spoiled for both sexes. But a mixed double at lawn tennis seems like a distinct game, so different is it to the other forms of lawn tennis and so well adapted to the combination of both sexes.

Then it is asserted that strenuous games mar the appearance of girls. This charge was very deliberately brought against hockey for women some little time ago in an influential London journal, and was rightly and promptly answered by a spirited article with illustrations of some well-known lady hockey players-proof positive of the fallacy that hockey damaged their appearance. I am afraid most of these contortions are the product of the snapshot camera. It must be remembered that instantaneous photographs show players of games as they are really never seen. Girls are doubtless in the ungraceful position represented for a fraction of a second; but the time is too short for the eye to see, although the camera, worse luck, catches the view, and what is more, registers it for ever! Though a girl should always try to be as neat and look as nice as she possibly can, even when playing a strenuous game, it is hardly possible or natural to be "just so" every second of a long struggle. In fact, I think it is more interesting to see a girl not absolutely immobile. I prefer that she should show some signs of excitement, that her muscles should be strained and her face set. This has a very real pleasure of its own, and I do not think it unsightly. Public speaking and singing may distort the mouth and disturb the facial muscles to a most ludicrous extent and give the eyes quite an unnatural appearance; but I have never yet heard it said that a man or woman should give up either because of its effect upon the appearance. Why, then, should women abandon athletic exercises, which they enjoy so much, and which do them so much good, merely because, just for a moment or two perhaps, their appearance is distorted?

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