There had been several suggestions that the length of the court (not the platform) should be increased in order to make it possible to lob more effectively over the heads of opponents and introduce a greater variety of offensive play. By lengthening the court, possibly two feet at each end, the idea was to make it easier to break up long rallies, where poor overheads and short lobs off the backstop were used. The APTA asked Fox Meadow Tennis Club and Orange Lawn Tennis Club to conduct some experiments.
Temporary lines were drawn on one court at each club, making the length of he court 48 feet instead of 44 feet, leaving 6 feet at each end past the backline. With reliable backstops, returning deep drives would not be extremely difficult.
A number of matches used the longer courts. The majority of the players preferred to leave the measurements as they were. Players felt that the lon[...]
The 1958 Men’s Championships saw the introduction of the formal Foot Fault Rules.
The server shall throughout his delivery (moment of impact of paddle and ball) of his service:
A. Not change his position by walking or running
(1) The server shall not by the following movements of his feet be deemed "to change his position by walking or running"
(a) Slight movements of the feet that do not materially affect the location originally taken by him
(b) An unrestricted movement of one foot so long as the other foot maintains continuously its original contact with the ground. The moving foot cannot touch the baseline or touch inside the court.
B. Maintain contact with the ground (platform)
C. Keep both feet in such a manner so as not to touch the baseline nor touch inside the court.
Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959
James Power Gordon was born in Brooklyn, NY, on March 20, 1928, and was raised in Forest Hills and Scarsdale, NY
He attended Scarsdale High School and Phillips Exeter Academy (Class of 1945). In 1949 he received a bachelor’s degree from MIT and joined the physics Department of Columbia University as a graduate student. He received his Masters and PhD degrees in physics in 1951 and 1955, respectively.
In the framework of his doctoral research he designed, built and demonstrated the successful operation of the first maser (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) together with H. Zeiger and with his doctoral advisor Prof. Charles H. Townes. There was considerable skepticism about whether the device would work and some of his colleagues said maser really stood for money acquisition scheme for expensive research. Gordon however was a believer and had a bet of a b[...]
The New York Times and Reporter Dispatch cover Nationals
Back to TopTwo New Champions in Wall-to Wall Tennis. New York Times, March 1959
The Reporter-Dispatch of White Plains, New York, was one of the leaders among the local Scarsdale papers in giving interesting, illustrated accounts of platform tennis. The March 9th edition of “One of Saturday's features,” speaking of the Men’s Nationals , commented on the play of Earle Gatchell of Fox Meadow and Ken Ward of Manursing Island Club, who admitted to a combined age of 128 years.
“They beat two younger men from Massachusetts in the first round in straight sets before bowing out. Gatchell helped construct the world's first platform tennis court three decades ago. I might add that the older team taught the youngsters something about the strategy and tactics of the game. When Earle came to report the results, he said, 'There has been a dreadful mistake. I know it wasn't supposed to happen, but we won.' Platform tennis covers a wide span of years."
Source: Adapted [...]
Jimmy Cogswell was a co-founder of the game and served as President of FMTC in 1939. He was among the first group of individuals inducted into the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 1965.
Upon retirement, Jimmy moved back to his boyhood roots in Maine and settled in Kittery, where he proceeded to build a retirement home and accompanying barn. He used the latter to pursue his hobbies that had expanded to include building a dinghy.
He acquired a classic Down East open lobster boat and embarked on a retirement career as an avid amateur lobster fisherman.
He died suddenly one morning in 1959 while attending to his lobster pots and was buried at the First Congregational Church in Kittery Point, ME.
Blanchard’s second book on the game, Platform Paddle Tennis, which was published that year, was dedicated to his memory.
This was Blanchard's second book on the game.
His first book Paddle Tennis had been published in 1944.
Blanchard was a prolific writer and wrote many articles about paddle and published a number cruising guide books on his other passion, sailing.
The article by Rex Lardner described the history of the game, where the game was being played, notable players and the casual sociability of the sport, including the "dress code." The article began....
"The tennis fans of Connecticut and its neighboring states are a hardy lot—at least, a significant and growing number of them are. When winter winds begin to howl and snow blankets their courts, these intrepid racketeers neither give up their ball-banging nor take up squash; they deck themselves instead in a special kind of warm winter finery and move on to a structure of wood and wire to play a game called platform Tennis."
Back to TopThe orange ball was pioneered by John P. Ware using spray-on paint
In the winter of 1963, an equipment innovation pioneered at Fox Meadow brought new color to the game. Because paddle in the north is often played in snow, the traditional white ball was difficult to see.
John Ware decided that coloring the balls might solve this problem. "I got a can of fluorescent paint, orangey-red, and started spraying paddle balls. These crusty orange balls worked pretty well until they dried out and cracked, and you got paint all over your clothes. But they were the precursors of the present yellow ball."
The APTA 1963 Annual Meeting Minutes included the following recommendation of Rules and Equipment Chairman George Harrison:
"The committee has spent the past year in an unsuccessful attempt to inveigle the ball manufacturers to produce a regulation ball spray painted with a fluorescent yellow-orange paint. . . . We suggest the member clubs purchase balls [...]
Blanchard, a co-founder of the game, suffered a heart attack at the Harvard-Princeton football game at Harvard stadium. A 1910 graduate of Harvard, he was a leader in textile research, a past president of the Textile Research Institute (1941-1945) and, for many years, head of his own industrial relations firm, which he founded in 1948. He served as the first President of the APTA, from 1934-1938, and was a tireless promoter of the game in the early years. He was among the first group of individuals inducted into the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 1965. In addition to authoring two books on the game, he also wrote widely on yachting.
One of Blanchard’s reports, prepared for the Massachusetts Development and Industrial Commission and made public in 1951 after a two-month dispute involving charges it was being suppressed, told of a “widespread belief” that the executive and legi[...]
From 1929 until his death in 1963 Blanchard had kept a detailed Scrapbook about how the game started and developed and those that made it happen. It provides a unique insight into the early years of the game.
Blanchard also had an earlier scrapbook covering 1928 - 1940. There is significant overlap between the two and the earlier one has a number of old photographs that were "borrowed" and not returned.
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