Mile. Suzanne Lenglen, tennis champion of the world, and now a Partner of Kings, is now back in Paris looking forward to a Strenuous season.
At Mentone, Monte Carlo, Beaulieu, Nice, and Cannes she has carried all before her, winning a dozen matches without turning a hair or ever losing more than two games. She has played with the King of Sweden and the ex-King of Portugal, she has bemused M. Venizelos, who thinks there has been no such grace of movement since the dances of ancient Hellas, and she has had to decline an invitation from the King of Spain to play at Madrid, and another to tour the United States despite (so they say) the offer of a king's ransom in the shape of two million francs.
For Suzanne is to defend the hard court championship in Paris which she won in 1914. She is down to play also at Lille at the first tournament since the war, and she is awaited at Wimbledon, where her English admirers will see her, if all that is said is true, at the very summit and top notch of her wonderful form.
Mile. Lenglen, nevertheless, apart from her actual play, takes very little practice latterly, and her coach at Nice has seen her not more than six hours in the course of a month. What she does insist on is a matutinal fifteen minutes of physical exercise in order to preserve that extraordinary suppleness which makes her so delightful to watch at her game. Her recent ex-plaits have brought out all sorts of stories of her early training. The fact that at 21 she has beaten the champions of the world across the nets is, as is known, largely due to her father, who coached her on his own court at Compiégne, but his gardener probably congratulates himself also on having had a not unimportant share in the production of the wonder. For two how's every morning he would place himself with M. Lenglen on one side of the court, his apron full of balls, while little' Suzanne would face them on the other side. The dener's job was that of "feeder," and as he sent each ball to her, her father would throw a handkerchief—in which a stone was tied to gi it weight—here or there and anywhere else he liked on the court, Suzanne's task being to strike the handkerchief with the ball as she; returned it. It was by such means 4 that she was able to carry off the}: championship of Picardy at the ages] of twelve. She is now seeking! fresh worlds to conquer.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.