"Let the Gallery have comfortable benches from which they can look down on the court". In the mid 1930s the porch was glassed in to make watching more pleasant.

Platform Tennis saves Fox Meadow Tennis Club

By the fall of 1934, the Great Depression had begun to hit many clubs extremely hard. Membership in the Fox Meadow Tennis Club, which had been well over 100 families, dropped to 77. The club had begun to run a deficit. Strenuous measures had to be taken. There were two schools of thought. One school favored extreme economy, saving the cash reserve as long as possible. Another group, having total faith in what platform tennis might do for the club, favored putting up another platform.  They suggested raising part of the funds by members’ underwriting.  This would provide a stove for the clubhouse, and enable it to function fully as a winter club. To help put over this policy, they urged the establishment of a special winter membership for the six months from November 1, 1934, to May 1, 1935. Those willing to bet on the future of platform tennis won out, and the newly authorized court didn’t have to be called a practice tennis court. The new court helped the game take off at the club as the first court had been monopolized by a small group, discouraging others from trying the game.

The special winter memberships were at first limited to twenty families, each charged a rate of slightly less than half the annual dues. The plan was so successful that by May of 1935, most of the special members accepted an opportunity to switch to regular membership. In the fall of 1935, the directors voted to erect a third platform. By May 1936, the special winter memberships were abolished in favor of all or nothing. Family membership in the club had increased from 77 to 112.

A year or two later, the maximum (at that time) of 130 was reached, and there was a waiting list. The club increased its dues. It had become a year-round club for tennis and platform tennis. A club, which had been dead six months of the year and rather sick for the other six months, was now very much alive all year.

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944, and Platform Paddle Tennis, 1958, and Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983

APTA letter to members of the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association explaining the benefits of the game

Fessenden S. Blanchard becomes first APTA President (1934-1938)

Blanchard, a co-inventor of the game along with James Cogswell, and one of the five co-founders of the American Paddle Tennis Association became the first President. Although Jack Ten Eyck Jr. had been the driver behind starting the APTA, it seemed sensible to have Blanchard take the lead, as he was a tireless promoter of the game he loved. Ten Eyck served as the APTA’s first Secretary. During his tenure on the APTA Board Blanchard also acted as Secretary (1935-1941), chief correspondent and publicist for the game. He authored two books on the game – Paddle Tennis (1944) and Platform Paddle Tennis (1959).

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944, and Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

Letter sent by APTA to 40 court owners seeking their opinions on court specifications and playing rules

Origin of the name APTA

The United States Paddle Tennis Association (USPTA) had abandoned the name American Paddle Tennis Association under which it was first organized in 19261

With the permission of the USPTA, the newly formed governing body for platform tennis adopted the former name of the USPTA.

Blanchard latter regretted that they did not make a clearer distinction between the two games.

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944

Note 1: According to an article in Paddle World in Fall 1976 the date that the Rev Beal and Frank Contessa formed the APTA was 1922 – see Frank B Contessa

Text from the original charter of the American Paddle Tennis Association. The charter was signed in November 1934.

Founding of the APTA

Manursing Island Club of Rye, New York, was an early adopter of the game after a somewhat skeptical committee of two came to Scarsdale to try out the sport at the court on Old Army Road. After trying out the game, the discussion changed from whether to put in a court to how many. They made a decision to install two courts and two additional ones shortly after. Not long after, Manursing member John C. (Jack) Ten Eyck Jr., took the initiative in founding the American Platform Tennis Association (APTA)— first called the American Paddle Tennis Association. Initial members came from Fox Meadow, Manursing and Greenwich Field Clubs.

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

In November 1934, Ten Eyck called the inaugural meeting of the APTA in his office in New York City. Representatives of three clubs that had been pioneers in the establishment of platform tennis courts were invited: Fox Meadow Tennis Club of Scarsdale, New York, the Manursing Island Club of Rye, New York, and the Field Club of Greenwich, Connecticut. Warren A. Ransom, and Grenville S. Sewall represented Manursing; Foster M. Hampton represented the Field Club; and Fessenden S. Blanchard represented Fox Meadow. All five signed the original charter.

The charter provided that meetings of member clubs were to be held at least once a year on the last Friday in October. Each installed platform entitled a member to one vote. However, there was a special provision stating that “courts belonging to club members may be considered club courts for voting purposes.” This was suggested because of the fact that in some communities, as in Scarsdale and Greenwich, many privately owned courts had been made available for Association championships and play by club members. At the time the Association was organized, the Fox Meadow Tennis Club and the Field Club at Greenwich each had only two courts compared to six at Manursing Island. However, the total number of platforms belonging to club members in the two former places was relatively large. The Manursing men generously made the proposal for this clause in the interests of fairness.

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944

Within two years, the original three clubs grew to eight with the addition of Tremont Place Paddle Tennis Club (Orange, New Jersey), Ardsley Country Club (Ardsley-on-Hudson, New York), Bronxville Field Club (Bronxville, New York), American Yacht Club (Rye, New York), and Amackassin Tennis Club (Yonkers, New York).

Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

One of the earliest steps to grow the game, was to send a reprint of an article in Squash-Badminton about platform tennis, and an announcement about the formation of the APTA to clubs belonging to the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association

Letters were also sent to forty platform owners asking these five questions:

1.     How can we improve the type of back net to get a larger percentage of accurate bounces off it? [This was sent a short time prior to the development of the Evans backstop on the Cogswell platform.]
2.     Do you favor the present practice of allowing one serve only? [All replies but one favored one serve.]
3.     Are the present court measurements about right? For instance, would a 2.5-foot alley, instead of the present 2 feet, improve the game, without changing the service or singles court? [No change was suggested at the time.]
4.     We are attempting to standardize the height of the net, which is now 3 feet at the posts with no regular height at the center. What do you think of 2’10” at the center—or do you prefer some other height? Many nets now sag to 2’8″ or 2’9″ at center. [The 2’10” was decided on, with, not over 3’1″ at the posts. This still remains the standard.]
5.     Have you any other suggestion of any kind on rules or equipment, or on any other matter?

Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard, Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

The Evans Backstop Design

Screens are perfected – the games future is assured

Donald K. Evans of Fox Meadow solved the game’s biggest problem, the unpredictable bounces off the backstops. Without a good solution the game had limited growth potential.

Evans devised a method to stretch a one-inch wire mesh from top to bottom inside, but not touching, the uprights surrounding the court. With adjustable tension bars, the Evans Backstop yielded a uniform bounce when a ball hit any of the four screens, and it became standard on all new courts. The future of the game was assured.

This new backstop was first erected—with the aid of John G. MacKenty—during the winter of 1934-35 on the second Cogswell court.

Don Evans was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966

Source: Adapted from Fessenden S. Blanchard, Paddle Tennis, 1944, and Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959