Incredible footage...

[stotty]

This footage is amazing. It's in colour. It looks like Bill Tilden playing against Don Budge. You get a great view of their strokes. Quite close up, too, at times. Budge looks more fluent than Tilden...moves well...he seems to opt to hit one of his famous backhands rather than a forehand in one of the rallies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Gpwqbmpxs&feature=endscreen&NR=1

I think Tilden strikes the ball at the apex on his serve...or even earlier...like Curren. Anyone else have an opinion on this?

[EdWeiss]

Lester Stoeffen

Stotty: I am pretty sure Tildens' opponent in the footage is Lester Stoeffen, not Don Budge. Stoeffen was known to have a great serve (the one or two of his serves you see from the footage are really fluent). Stoeffen went on to become a tennis professional with a reputation as a great coach of the serve. He worked with Stan Smith on his serve when Stan was a junior; I once spoke to Roy Barth who was a top 10 American player from the 60s about Lester (Lestter coached Roy) and Roy raved about Lester as a coach of the serve. Only at the very end of the footage do you see Budge and Vines walk out onto the court but there is no footage of them playing (I believe). Incredible footage nonetheless! Wonder if there is more footage from the event lying around somewhere.

I stumbled across the following footage of Tilden, Vinny Richards (a doubles specialist), Budge and Perry playing doubes that is very interesting. Perry hits an amazing reverse forehand in the footage. Perry's forehand looks unortodox - they say that he ruined several generations of British players who tried to copy his unorthodox "wrist snap" - Stotty you can probably weigh in on that one. Looks like Tilden had several elements of the modern forehand.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/professional-tennis-in-u-s-a/query/budge+tennis

[stotty]

Stotty: I am pretty sure Tildens' opponent in the footage is Lester Stoeffen, not Don Budge. Stoeffen was known to have a great serve (the one or two of his serves you see from the footage are really fluent). Stoeffen went on to become a tennis professional with a reputation as a great coach of the serve. He worked with Stan Smith on his serve when Stan was a junior; I once spoke to Roy Barth who was a top 10 American player from the 60s about Lester (Lestter coached Roy) and Roy raved about Lester as a coach of the serve. Only at the very end of the footage do you see Budge and Vines walk out onto the court but there is no footage of them playing (I believe). Incredible footage nonetheless! Wonder if there is more footage from the event lying around somewhere.

I stumbled across the following footage of Tilden, Vinny Richards (a doubles specialist), Budge and Perry playing doubes that is very interesting. Perry hits an amazing reverse forehand in the footage. Perry's forehand looks unortodox - they say that he ruined several generations of British players who tried to copy his unorthodox "wrist snap" - Stotty you can probably weigh in on that one. Looks like Tilden had several elements of the modern forehand.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/pr...y/budge+tennis

Ed, thanks for the correction. I got overexcited. It's still an exceptional clip, isn't it? And in colour. I hadn't recognised that was Vines at the end of the clip!

Thanks for your clip by return. Yes, Perry did ruin a generation of British players trying to imitate his forehand. Rather, it was the LTA actually. Who strongly advocated everyone should hit forehands like Perry in the light of all his success. This is an LTA for par that John Lloyd's father (now 94 years old and a lifelong critic of the LTA) never stops going on about. So I know the story well.

Love Perry's reverse forehand...

It's important to keep trawling Youtube and other video websites because new, incredible stuff is turning up all the time.

Thanks so much for your enlightening input, Ed.