Norway Against California

And Some Great Tennis for the Red Cross

J. PARMLY PARET

ALTHOUGH the official war bulletins have not as yet announced the advent of Norway in the ranks of the anti-Teuton allies, her aid has been enlisted indirectly in the great cause. Molla Bjurstedt, the daughter of a retired Norse army officer, has volunteered her services in the great campaign of the American tennis players to raise $100,000 for Red Cross ambulances for the American expeditionary forces.

Miss Bjurstedt has everything to lose and little to gain in the series of exhibition matches she agreed to play in the tour de la barnstorm, and her willingness to take on the most formidable adversaries this summer for the everlasting sport of the thing and the profit of the Red Cross, has been highly commended.

There have been, during the last few seasons, only three women in the country who are serious rivals of Miss Bjurstedt. They are Mrs. May Sutton Bundy, Champion of America in 1904 and of All-England in 1905 and 1907 ; Mrs. Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, American Champion for 1909, 1910 and 1911; and Miss Mary Browne, who held the title for 1912, 1913, 1914, the three years which preceded the Norwegian conquest of America. Ail of her rivals camfe. from California, by the way!

Each of the three has beaten the champion at one time or another during the last two or three seasons, but Miss Browne is thought by many to be the most dangerous foe of the Norse girl. The duel between these two, therefore, has been doubly interesting.

Before the Red Cross campaign started, the rivals had met just twice and both times on the asphalt courts of the far West. On asphalt, each had won one of the matches played, but Miss Browne's more recent victories over the Norse girl have made many confident that she will beat the champion in the great finals in the end of August.

IN form, there is a marked difference between the two. Miss Bjurstedt is the very personification of steadiness. She rarely has an "off day." Miss Browne, on the contrary, is capable of higher flights of brilliancy, but she does have lapses in her game.

The Norwegian is a ground-stroke player, par excellence, and a hard hitter. She "goes for her stroke," as they say in England and is always daring in her effort to seek out the smallest openings for winning shots. Miss Bjurstedt never "babies" herself, and we have yet to see her enough overawed by any player to slow up her game, or to make her "play safe."

Her manner of hitting the ball, most noticeable perhaps in her full-swinging, backhand shots, is distinctly English, and her European training has brought with it one drawback which the best American girls lack—a weakness in the volleyed stroke.

MISS BROWNE, on the other hand, prefers this style of play, and, against weaker opponents, makes good use of the net position. Against the Norse girl, however, one is seldom safe at the net. Frankly, I have never felt safe in advocating net play for women's singles. In mixed doubles, the woman's place is always at the net, and one of the partners in a women's double should be able to make good use of that vantage point. But in singles, the full width of the court is too much ground to cover. A good man player finds it a difficult task to hold the net in safety, and women's skill at the game suffers more in contrast to man's in her ability to cover court than in hard hitting.

The girl with the fast low passing stroke has a distinct advantage over her rival at the net. Miss Browne has found this out to her cost this summer, for not even May Sutton was better at the passing stroke than the champion.

Miss Browne has often tried net play against the Norwegian, but it is doubtful if she has won as much as she has lost by the manoeuver. When she did get to the ball, she volleyed beautifully, but one must "kill clean" at the net against so persistent a player, and too often the total of errors, added to passes, added to second chances that finally lost the rally, outnumbered the points won by volleying.

Whatever the result of the duel between the Californian and the Norwegian, it is a sorry day for the Eastern section of the country when all honors in sight are held by the ladies from opposite sides of the world. Though Mrs. Wightman's home is now in Boston, she was a Californian before her marriage and her tennis skill was a product of the far West.

The old differences of last winter over the amateurprofessional legislation have been lost to sight and all hands have loyally given their services to the exhibition matches to raise money for the Red Cross ambulances.

THE program President Adee has laid out includes the furnishing, equipping, manning and maintaining of three sections of sixty ambulances for the "Sammies," entirely from money and man-power raised among the tennis players. All of the proceeds of the patriotic tournament at Forest Hills that is to take the place of the championship meeting this season, are to go toward this end, in addition to personal contributions and gate money taken in at the exhibitions.

For some years the treasury of the U. S. N. L. T. A. has been bulging out with an excess of capital for which it has seemed difficult to find any legitimate use. It would not be surprising, therefore, if a proposal to appropriate a substantial part of this balance toward Adee's ambulance fund would be well received and passed promptly when the delegates get together next February, and with this help there seems little doubt that the splendid program of the tennis players for Red Cross help can be carried out as planned.

It would be hard, at the present time of writing, to pick the abler and more resourceful player of the two women mirrored upon this page. I think it can safely be said that the American is the safer bet on the asphalt courts of the far west, but when it comes to the finals on grass the case may be reversed and we may see the Norwegian holding all of her honors.