world, felt a sense of keen personal loss at his heroic passing.
Wilding was a man whose sterling qualities gave even more to the
game than his play, and tennis is better for his all too brief
career.

America lost some of its finest manhood in the War, and tennis
paid its toll. No player was a more likeable personality nor
popular figure among the rising stars than John Plaffman, the
young Harvard man who gave his life in Flanders fields. I cannot
touch on the many heroes who made everlasting fame in a bigger
game than that which they loved so well. Time is too short. It is
sufficient to know that the tennis players of the world dropped
their sport at the call of War, and played as well with death as
ever they did on the tennis court.

The War is over, please God never to return, and the men are back
from their marvellous task. The game of War is done, the games of
Peace are again being played. Tennis suffered the world over from
war's blight, but everywhere the game sprang up in renewed life
at the close of hostilities. The season of 1919 was one of
reconstruction after the devastation. New figures were standing
in prominence where old stars were accustomed to be seen. The
question on the lips of all the tennis players was whether the
stars of pre-War days would return to their former greatness.

The Championship of the World for 1919 at Wimbledon was anxiously
awaited. Who would stand forth as the shining light of that
meeting? Gerald Patterson, the "Australian Hurricane," as the
press called him, came through a notable field and successfully
challenged Norman Brookes for the title. Gobert and Kingscote