iss Rice and me. I started very nervously, as Miss Rice had
given me rather a fright in the Irish Championship the month before,
when she appeared in Dublin as a "dark horse." On that occasion I had
only scraped through 7/5, 7/5. I began the match at Wimbledon by
serving a double fault, and lost several games by doing the same thing
in the first set. My length was awful, and Miss Rice was playing well
from the start. She had a very fine fore-hand drive, but, like myself, a
bad back-hand. She led at 3 games to 1, and took the first set at 6/4.
In the second set I regained my confidence a little, winning three love
games out of the first four; but Miss Rice won the next four games in
succession, the score being called 5/3 and 40/15 against me. At this
point, in my despair, I said to Mr. Chipp, who was umpiring the match,
"What _can_ I do?" His grim answer was, "Play better, I should think." I
then fully realized that I had not been playing my best game, and that
to win I must hit harder. This I did, with the result that my length
improved and I snatched this game from the fire--although Miss Rice was
three times within a stroke of the match--and I eventually won the set
at 8/6.

The last set was well fought out, for, although I began well and led at
3/1, Miss Rice won the next three games in succession and reached 40/30
in the following game. This was her last effort, as I ran out at 6/4,
winning the Championship for the second time. I think it was one of the
closest matches I ever played, and I see by _Pastime_ that I only won 18
games to her 16, and 110 strokes to her 100, and I felt I was most lucky
to win at all.

[Signature: Blanche Hillyard]

MRS. STERRY

(_Champion_, 1895, 1896, 1898, 1901, 1908)

Of course it goes without saying that my most memorable and exciting
matches will all be those in which I have excelled or been the most
distinguished person at the immediate moment! Let me just say that I am
not going to give details of any match, as that is beyond my power and,
I assume, of little interest to the reader.

Winning my first championship of the Ealing Lawn Tennis Club at the age
of 14 was a very important moment in my life. How well I remember,
bedecked by my proud mother in my best clothes, running off to the Club
on the Saturday afternoon to play in the final without a vestige of
nerve (would that I had none now!), and winning--that was the first
really important match of my life.

Another gre