Word: backhand
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...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...
...national championship. In the final, between Shields and Mangin, Shields seemed to have the match well in hand with a lead of 5-2 in the first set. He became rattled by close line decisions and lost the set at 10-8. Mangin's best shot was a backhand return of service which repeatedly aced Shields as he came in to the net. Shields won the second set at 6-2. Mangin won the next two with the steadiest tennis of his career, 6-4, 6-3, for the match and his first U. S. title...
...racket strings, Helen Wills Moody played Phyllis Mudford. In a match against Mrs. Moody, almost every woman player looks as inefficient as Mrs. Moody would look if she were playing one of the top ten men. She netted one shot in the first set, played the Mudford backhand when she needed a point, won, 6-1, 6-4. Helen Jacobs has not been playing so well as usual this year; Mrs. Moody beat her 6-0, 6-0 a fortnight ago. When Helen Jacobs beat Betty Nuthall 8-6, 6-4, by steady application of chop-strokes, critics could...
...needed one more match and got it the next day when Helen Jacobs, wearing a transparent skirt and an intermittent frown, chopped and drove at Phyllis Mudford's weak backhand till she won, 6-4, 6-2. The match between Helen Moody and Betty Nuthall was nothing like the one they played in 1929, when Mrs. Moody decided the Wightman Cup series by winning 8-6, 8-6. Last week, they played more craftily, put less pace on their shots. Betty Nuthall won the first game at love, held her own till the seventh game when she made four...