Word: backhanded
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Australia last October for a tour like the one which Tilden & Johnston made in 1920, knew about Jack Crawford and Harry Hopman, mainstays of last year's Australian Davis Cup team. But all they had heard about McGrath was that he is a boy wonder who hits his backhand shots with both hands. As soon as they started to play, they found out more. In last week's quarter-finals at Melbourne, Vivian McGrath played Henry Ellsworth Vines Jr., U. S. and Wimbledon champion, who had beaten him before. Whacking Vines's hardest serves with...
...good one. Unable to give eye-witness reports of McGrath or to publish adequate photographs of him, U. S. tennis writers had to rely on descriptions by U. S. players who had seen him in action. Said Wilmer Allison: "McGrath will go right to the top with that funny backhand. I don't know who is going to beat him in a year...
...before Cochet won. 5-7, 7-5, 7-5, 6-2. In the doubles next day, Allison and his partner John Van Ryn won the first match for the U. S. against Cochet and Jacques ("Toto") Brugnon. but not until Brugnon and Cochet, playing Van Ryn's weak backhand, had evened the match twice. Score...
...left foot, are, like all first-rate tennis accomplishments, based on years of tedious practice which mediocre players like to think they do not need. To make practice less tedious, Vines two years ago thought up a game called "Errors." If he was trying to im prove his backhand, his opponent gave him no other kind of shots. Vines counted a point every time he made the shot, a point against him when he did not, ten points a game. Even in important matches, Vines, if he gets a set or two ahead and is reason ably sure of winning...
...dark afternoon. A grey drizzle made the court slippery and the bad footing seemed to bother Crawford. It did not bother Vines. After a week of good but not brilliant tennis, he suddenly found his game. His backhand, weak the day before, was suddenly a magnificent offensive stroke. His drives lashed the uttermost corners of Crawford's back court. Crawford said afterward that Vines's first serve "seemed to hit the court the same instant it left the racket." Vines followed it to the net and smashed Crawford's returns so hard that the ball kicked...