The events were held at Fox Meadow Tennis club in Scarsdale, NY. [click image at left to enlarge]
Men’s Senior 50+:
Hodges-Irvine defeated Baird-Hayes 6-4,6-1
Men’s Senior 60+:
Graham-Opdycke defeated Holmes-Anderson 6-1, 7-6
Men’s Senior 70+:
Bascome-Leroy defeated Nelson-Piccoli 6-3, 6-3.
Flip Goodspeed and Scott Mansager captured the #1 spot in the Men’s and Sue Aery and Gerri Viant were #1 in the Womens.
Bertan Cikigil and Rich Lombard reported on these events which were played at The Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Scarborough, New York and featured a turnout of 65 teams:
Represented in the draw were teams from Canada, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and the Northeastern states. Three days of non-stop play featured a number of firsts, such as:
• Bob Brown and Howard Sipe won the Men’s Senior 65’s and gained their first-ever win over Bill and David Childs 7-5, 0-6, 6-4
• In the Men’s Senior 55’s, Gary Cochrane and Tom Caputo gained their first (or anyone else’s for that matter) win over Doug Russell and Hank Irvine (1-6, 6-2, 6-3), and then went on to win the championship over Scott Estes and Danny Galves by a score of 6-4, 6-2. This was their 29th match against each other, and they now stand 1 and 28. Congratulations to perseverance!
• The Men’s Senior 45’s featured a 2 1/2 hour, two-set marathon semifinal with Bob Kleinert and Jim McNamara outlasting Steve Baird and Martin Sturgess (last year’s champions) 6-4, 7-5. Bob and Jim went on to defeat Chicago’s Mike Sullivan and Ray Murphy, 6-2, 6-1, in the finals.
• The Men’s Senior 145’s featured a first-ever National Championship for Jack Westerfield, who teamed up with Bob Brown to defeat fellow Fox Meadow colleagues Paul Doyle and Vince Greco 7- 5, 7-6.
Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 3, Issue 5, May, 2002
On March 17, 2002, Sue Aery (and partner, Gerri Viant) shocked the spectators at the National Championships. No, it wasn’t the service let cord that dropped in for a match point ace. Nor was it the tight third set victory After all. Sue and Gerri had won seven of the previous eleven Women’s Open National Titles, including three in a row. The surprise came to the crowd when Sue picked up the microphone and announced her retirement from platform tennis.
Sue and Gerri had accomplished more than they ever could have imagined thirteen years earlier. Just when 400 exuberant fans were expecting Sue’s modest victory speech, her tearful eyes and trembling voice proclaimed a different message, “As of now, I am announcing my retirement from platform tennis to pursue a career in chiropractic therapy.”
Sue’s mother. Peg, said, “Sue has had extensive chiropractic therapy over her athletic career and she feels that she could not have achieved what she has without it.” Peg concluded, “I think that it’s great. Sue wants to be able to give back to people the help she has personally received from chiropractic care.”
Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 3, Issue 5, May, 2002
Majorie Hodson reported on the Championship for PTM:
Once again, the future of platform tennis descended on Beacon Hill Club in Summit, NJ. Fifty-six pairs of juniors competed in four age groups for the right to be called National Champions and wear the coveted medals. These APTA Junior Nationals featured competitive matches and unparalleled sportsmanship. And these kids can play!
Check-in and lunch at Beacon Hill Club preceded a group photo. Players then dispersed to nearby clubs (Canoe Brook Country Club, Short Hills Club and The Racquets Club of Short Hills) to begin the competition. Following round robin play in all age groups, finalists returned to Beacon Hill to finish the tournament.
In 10 & Under play, reigning champ Pete DonnaHy paired with last year’s finalist James Burke to defeat Karen Cash, Donnally’s partner a year ago, and Evan Zimmer. Twenty-one pairs vied for the crown in this age group.
The 12 & Under Champions, Henry Burchenal and John Donnally, overcame familiar opponents Tanner Combias and Nick Hellmuth, who they see regularly during clinics at Beacon Hill Club.
14 & Under winner Lauren Cash returned to competition this year with partner Brandon Kuchta. The former 12 & Under champions missed the event last year because of Lauren’s broken arm. They overcame Peter Hissey and Mark Herzlich in an exciting final. Look for 11-year-old Peter to appear in many more Nationals finals. (He hopes that future competitions don’t interfere with his watching the
Eagles play, however).
Defending 18 & Under champions Anthony and Will Nunziata were denied a three-peat by their long-time foe Tyler Gaffney, who teamed this year with Dieg Rodriguez. Gaffney and Rodriguez displayed excellent racquet skills to overcome their opponents.
Sponsors Viking Athletics. New Jersey Men’s Platform Tennis Association, New Jersey Women’s Platform Tennis League, R. J. Reilly, and “A Friend of Junior Paddle” helped to make the day special for the 112 juniors who participated.
Source: Platform Tennis Magazine Vol. 3, Issue 4, February, 2002
Is it truly possible to determine who the best platform tennis players were based on their records, or is it more realistic to ask the veterans who played through the late 70’s heyday and continue to compete today? No matter what criteria you use, the one name that always rises to the surface in women’s paddle is Robin Fulton.
Robin picked up her first wooden paddle in 1978 when her parents installed a court in their Darien. CT backyard. A year later, Robin began to take the game seriously, at The Paddle Center in Norwalk, under the careful watch of her friend and coach, Bob Callaway.
Before long, Robin had excelled in local women’s paddle and was competing at line one in the men’s league for the Stanford Yacht Club. Bob Callaway recalls, “I can remember Charlotte Lee, Linda Wolf, and the other top women in their prime times, however, no one could intimidate or dominate a match like Robin Fulton. The women today are much better and more consistent than they used to be and Robin is certainly the most athletic and skilled woman I’ve ever seen play the sport.”
Callaway added, “Robin Fulton was the first woman to aggressively blitz the net as part of her back-court strategy. This is certainly the signature move which Robin started and you see in other great players today like Sue Aery and Gerri Viant.”
Early on, Robin partnered with Linda Wolf and Pat Butterfield. Together, they accounted for five National Finals, including two National Championships.
In 1991, Robin began playing with Diane Tucker. Together, Robin and Diane achieved Hall-of-Fame quality results. Diane recalls, “Robin told me that she never played more than one season with the same partner, however, we had so much fun on and off the court that the one season lasted six.” Over the six years they played, they reached the Women’s Open National Finals each year and earned four titles along the way. After the 1997 finals in Pittsburgh, Diane retired from paddle to pursue business opportunities. Robin began playing with Sarah Krieger and had exceptional results, but no additional National Titles. This season, Robin has partnered with Cindy Prendergast. She plans another run for the National Women’s Open Title in 2002.
To break down Robin’s paddle accomplishments in a nutshell, she reached the Women’s Open finals 12 times over 18 years, winning with four different partners. In addition, since Robin turned 40 in 1997, she has reached the 40+ finals each year (with three different partners). Finally, in Mixed play, Robin has reached the finals 11 times over a 16-year stretch, accumulating an additional four National Titles along the way.
Today, Robin resides and instructs tennis in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Her husband, Bob, is a professional golf instructor and an accomplished platform tennis player. Robin’s daughter, Chris, attends prep school and her son, Tom, is currently attending college.
Is it truly possible to determine who the best platform tennis players were based on their records, or is it more realistic to ask the veterans who played through the late 70’s heyday and continue to compete today? No matter what criteria you use, the one name that always rises to the surface in women’s paddle is Robin Rich Fulton.
Robin Rich Fulton was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002.
APTA President John Horine expressed his views in the From the APT column in PTM:
A topic of much paddle party conversation and PTM articles so far this season is back-draw defaulting. Everybody seems to have an opinion on this issue and lots of people have expressed them to me in one form or another. My personal opinion? I think defaulting out of any round of any draw of any event (for anything other than a valid injury) flies directly in the face of what platform tennis is all about. As I wrote in the last issue, platform tennis is a sport made up of a close community of people – all enjoying each other and the sport they love. If someone loses and decides not to play the consolations, they are depriving not just one, but several teams from competing in matches they may have traveled many hours to play. I cannot comprehend someone signing up to play in an event and pulling out after losing because they suddenly have “other things to do.”
Back-draw defaulting is not new, it has been going on for years. I have seen and heard of it in local, regional, ranking, and even the National Championships events. Last May, the APTA Board set up the Player’s Committee to respond to such issues. The committee will review each case and rule as they see fit. Their decision will stand. Anyone may appeal a decision to the general APTA Board who will hear the arguments in the annual May meeting.
Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 3 Issue 3, January, 2002
The Long Island Platform Tennis Association, Chaired by Charles Vasoll, hosted the 2002 Men’s and Women’s Open National Championships from March 8-10. The weather was a comfortable 65 degrees; however, occasional wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour were not uncommon. One thing was for sure, a wind of change was in the air.
Going into the Men’s Round-of-16, no major upsets occurred. But everyone knows that anything can happen in the Nationals. The 16’s saw two upsets: Mike Cochrane-Martin Sturgess (12) def. Brian Uihlein-John Hough (4) and Mike Marino-Chris Williams (10) def. Scott Estes-Scott Mackesy (2). With the gates opened up. Mike Gillespie-Bob Conklin (6), the highest remaining seeded team in their half of the draw, advanced past Marino- Williams in the quarter-finals and over John Milbank and Jim Kaufman (8) in the semi-finals (Milbank-Kaufman advanced over Sturgess-Cochrane in the quarters).
On the other half of the draw, five-time National Champions Scott Mansager-Flip Goodspeed (3) advanced past Andy Todd-Joe Leytze in the 16’s, and then defeated Scott Bondurant-Greg Stipa (7) in the quarterfinals. In addition, the top-seeded defending champs, David Ohlmuller and Chris Gambino earned their semifinal spot by overcoming Fritz Odenbach-Mike Stulac in the 16’s and Anthony Cosimano-Steve Haller (5) in a 7-6 third set quarterfinal tiebreaker.
The Sunday morning semi-finals were spectacular. The first event was a rematch of the 2001 National Finals. This time, however, Goodspeed and Mansager were out for revenge – earning a straight-set 6-4, 6-3 victory over Gambino-Ohlmuller. In the other semi, the sixth-seeds triumphed over the eighth-seeds.
The finals was an emotional experience for many as Goodspeed and Mansager took back their former crown in a 6-4, 6-3 win over Gillespie and Conklin. Along with the title, Flip and Scott earned enough points to catapult them up as the #1-Ranked team in the country for the first time in four years.
Historically, women’s platform tennis has been a little more predictable than the men’s. Up until the National Women’s Open quarterfinals, where the top eight seeded teams advanced, this was again the case.
In the quarter’s, the big upset occurred when up-and-coming stars Lauren Zink and Julie Dodd (6) defeated veterans Robin Fulton and Cindy Prendergast (2) 6-3, 6-3. On the other half of the draw, Patty Hogan and Sandra Krusos (8) won 6-4, 6-2 over Hilary Debbs and Kerri Delmonico(4). Having just paired up, the APTA abided by their rules of tournament placement and could not seed Hogan and Krusos higher than eight.
In the semi-finals, Dodd-Zink pulled off another amazing victory, defeating Bobo Delaney and Tonia Mangan (3) 6-3, 6- 3. In the other semi, defending champions Sue Aery and Gerri Viant defeated Hogan-Krusos 6-1, 7-5. The stage was set for the top-ranked veterans to play the sixth-seeded challengers.
A two-hour battle raged on in view of 400+ spectators as Aery and Viant pulled out the victory as an un-returnable let serve dribbled over the net on an ad-in match point. In the end, the champions showed why they are the best and the challengers showed why one day they could be.
Source:Platform Tennis Magazine Volume 3, Issue 5, May, 2002
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