APTA started prescribing rules for use and specification of balls.
Ball Specification: The APTA furnished sponge rubber balls, approximately 2.5″ in diameter.
The Ball Use Rule: In tournaments, only one ball could be used continuously during each set. The server could not substitute another ball during an unfinished set without the permission of the tournament officials, nor could the server hold another ball when serving.
For a number of years, the APTA had closed their eyes to the common issue of repeated foot faults, figuring that it might lessen the fun if they kept calling them. However, the Association began cracking down on them in championship tournaments, appointing foot-fault judges for final and semifinal matches.
Formal rules were introduced for the Men’s Championships in 1958.
Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959
The article included some excellent pictures of players and galleries taken during the national doubles championships at Fox Meadow in Scarsdale.
Source: World Tennis, April 1956
Elliott Wilson (1899-1962) was an executive with the paper products division of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company
The first time Bob Kingsbury’s paddle abilities came to public attention was in 1955, when a newspaper article noted that Oliver Durrell and his son Bill had defeated Oliver Kingsbury and his son Bob in a Club tournament.
Bob was a multiple winner of Club tennis and platform tennis tournaments (see Kingsbury, as well as a two-time national champion in platform tennis. He served as APTA President from 1978-1980 and was inducted into the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 2003.
Source: Adapted from Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983
Carlisle and Hebard, the finalists in 1954, prevailed in a close match against Moses and Deland.
Elfie Carroll collected her second Women’s title with Louise Ganzenmueller (their first win had been in 1950 and they were finalists in 1952 and 1953).
John Moses sweetened his loss in the Men’s by winning the Mixed with Fritzi Smith over the very strong team of Madge Beck and Dick Hebard.
Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959
The article covered the coming of age of the game when the APTA’s 21st birthday was marked by the Men’s Nationals at Fox Meadow, and described the hard-fought finals between Hebard and Carlisle, the winners, and Moses and Deland.
Source: The New York Times, March 14, 1955
The 1953 winners all repeated.
Guernsey and McNeill staged a fine recovery against Hebard and Carlisle after being two sets down. The match, one of the longest on record, lasted 71 games.
For Madge Beck and sister, Maizie Moore, this was their fifth title and the fourth in a row. Madge had now won ten out of the last eleven events played from 1938-1954 (no events were held from 1943-1948 because of WW II and the aftermath).
Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959
In the early days, courts often fell into disrepair as the original construction techniques and choice of materials were poor.
Often these courts were torn down, but the court at Riverside Yacht Club in Riverside, CT, was the first to be lost to an “Act of God.”
Despite the fact that courts were being lost, many more were being built and the number of operational courts was expanding rapidly.
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