Letter: Victory on grass

Sir: I am at odds with your leading article, "The times are out of joint" (20 January), which suggests that cannabis smoking is unlikely to improve your winning potential.

From the age of five to 25 I played tennis intermittently against my father who, despite a 40-year age difference and the slight handicap of having only one lung after a wartime operation to cure tuberculosis, never failed to beat me through cunning, gamesmanship and, perhaps, parental duty.

It was not until I was slightly stoned on Thai grass that I eventually managed to beat him, by concentrating on winning the game rather than on my inadequate forehand.

My father who, at 82, is shortly to publish his first book, Somebody Said (it couldn't be done), a punchy description of his successful business life, has since that day declined to play another set.

Yours faithfully, ROBERT HORNE Twyford, Hampshire 20 January