Game spans the generations and skill levels at Fox Meadow

Jean Eaton (left) and Kitty Fuller, the 1935 and 1936 Women’s Champions dressed for paddle. Eaton won the Women's Singles in 1935 and Fuller won in 1937. Fuller was among the first group of individuals awarded the APTA Honor Award in 1965
Jean Eaton (left) and Kitty Fuller, the 1935 and 1936 Women’s Champions dressed for paddle. Eaton won the Women's Singles in 1935 and Fuller won in 1937. Fuller was among the first group of individuals awarded the APTA Honor Award in 1965

At Fox Meadow, paddle meant not just championship competition, but the inclusion of young and old, good and mediocre. This was an aspect of the sport fostered by the Old Army Athletes. From the time a youngster was old enough to get a ball across the paddle net, she or he was included, not just in Juniors play, but in some Club tournaments as well.

And Fox Meadow held a lot of tournaments: Men’s and Women’s Doubles, Singles, Mixed Doubles, Girls’, Boys’, Round Robins, Scrambles. On a single 1935 weekend, the Club held a Men’s Doubles, a Junior Boys’ Singles, and a Junior Girls’ Singles. In some of these, quite young players had a chance to face the game’s best competitors. In the winter of 1935, Ruthie Blanchard, age twelve, partnered her father to the finals of a Club championship Mixed Doubles. The Blanchards lost, but the pair across the net were Percival and Kitty Fuller, and Kitty Fuller happened to be the National Women’s champion that year.

Source: Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983