in a match should be given as much experience as possible in a knock-up
game. It is the only way. Many players make the cardinal mistake of
playing day after day in the same way; they starve all their weak
strokes and overdo all their best ones; in fact, they play in precisely
the same manner as if the occasion were an important match. If you do
this, you must always preserve those weak strokes; they are not even
given a chance to develop. I once asked a girl whom I noticed
continually running round her back-hand in a practice game, why she did
this. The characteristic answer came back: "I cannot take a back hand. I
should be hopelessly beaten if I didn't run round the ball." But what
does it matter if you are beaten fifty times in a practice game if you
are improving your strokes? That girl's back-hand could never improve;
she made absolutely no distinction between a practice game and a match.
In fact, it was very little of a _practice_ game to her. How can your
game improve, or move forward, if you make no effort to strengthen what
is feeble?

Practise, then, conscientiously, and with infinite patience; never mind
who beats you. Take each weak stroke in turn, and determine to master
it, and I think you will find that you will be amply rewarded for all
your painstaking work by a vast improvement and keener enjoyment in your
game. What greater delight than to feel a stroke you have always dreaded
becoming easier and less embarrassing each time you use it, to know that
you are genuinely advancing instead of making no progress and playing
the same old bad shots time after time? I am sure you will say such a
sense of achievement is worth all the trouble which must be faced and
all the patience which must be exercised.

Of course in match play it is quite different. You avoid your weak
strokes as much as you can; your object then is to win the game. But