The other question which deserves most consideration in prepar-
ing future plans, and one which has evoked considerable contro-
versy, is the matter of the qualifying tournament. In our dis-
cussions last Fall the reasons for the introduction of the qualifying
tournament were, first, the fact that the open tournament in the
past few years had grown to such proportions that it was difficult
to conduct a proper tournament within a week’s time; second, that
the open tournament permitted entries of varying caliber, with the
result that, generally speaking, the first several days were spent in
weeding out the lesser players; third, that qualifying tournaments
throughout the country, if properly conducted, would result in more
interest locally and a greater number of total entries; fourth, from
the standpoint of expense, it was felt that colleges would prefer to
incur the lesser expense of a qualifying tournament until it was
demonstrated that their players were of sufficient caliber to enter
the final event, in which case ‘the additional expense would be
justified.

It can be fairly stated that the qualifying tournaments for 1938
were not a success, In fact, one of the eight districts found it
impossible to hold a tournament. There appear to be many reasons
contributing to the lack of success of the qualifying tournaments,
some of which are as follows:

First, the fact that because the machinery was not put into effect
until early Spring, the college tennis schedules had been arranged,
so that it was difficult to select a satisfactory date for the quali-
fying tournament, because in many cases the date conflicted with
college examinations or other important tournaments.

Second, the existence of certain conference championships de-
tracted from the qualifying tournament, and in some cases colleges
which did absorb the expenses of players to conference champion-
ships would not finance the expenses to qualifying tournaments.

Third, the lack of interest on the part of colleges to support the
qualifying tournament.

Fourth, the failure of college authorities to insist upon their
representatives completing the event. In some cases, for example,
as soon as an individual had established his qualification by reach-
ing the quarter finals he defaulted in order to play in some other
tournament. :

It would appear, however, that the two most serious reasons are,
first, the failure to consider the qualifying tournament in arranging
the college schedule and, second, the lack of support on the part of
the colleges.

It is our opinion that both of these objections could easily be
overcome if proper thought and codperation were supplied by the
college authorities.

In the questionnaire sent to the twenty-five members of the
N.C. A.A. committee, the question was asked whether the com-
mittee members approve of the system of qualifying tournaments.
Of the twenty-two replies, three failed to answer this, thirteen
endorsed the qualifying system, and six favored its abandonment,
returning to the open championship.

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