Inauguration of John Parker Compton Memorial Tournament; a boy who loved tennis

Allied troops were advancing in Italy, but the Nazis still held the Apennine Mountains, and suspected Allied sympathizers faced execution by the Germans. In hopes of rescuing a priest and a family who were in jeopardy, two young American paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines in March of 1945.

One was a teenager from Scarsdale, John Parker Compton. As he neared the priest’s church, a sniper shot and killed him. Later the Nazis killed the priest and burned his church.

After the war, the Compton family had the church rebuilt and a memorial plaque installed.

At home, John’s parents Randolph and Dorothy,created a living memorial to the boy who had played so much tennis at Fox Meadow Tennis Club, a tennis tournament for boys eighteen and under.

Paul Sullivan and his pal John Compton played many a game together. “Then John went off to Exeter,” Sullivan recalls, “and a year at Princeton before enlisting. My father, Paul Sullivan, Sr., and Randolph Compton jointly proposed to FMTC and the Scarsdale Recreation Department that such a tournament be established. It was quickly approved, and Randolph and Dorothy Compton established a trust fund to provide the funds necessary.”

Kitty Fuller chaired the first John Parker Compton Memorial Tournament, held at Fox Meadow on June 24, 1946. Sanctioned from the start by the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association, the tournament was open to ELTA registered Juniors from Westchester and nearby counties. The first winner lived in Brooklyn. As the entries grew, the Compton tournament had to be limited to Westchester boys under eighteen.

“This tournament thus became the first and only privately endowed USTA-sanctioned tournament in the country,” says Paul Sullivan, the permanent chairman.

Doubles matches were added to the competition in its fifth year, and a total of sixty singles competitors and twenty-one doubles teams entered. The competition has grown virtually every year and in 1976 broke all previous records, with ninety-eight singles entrants and fifty-three doubles teams. Over the years it has included such players as Bailey Brown, Buddy Gallagher, and Andrew Kohlberg, who is currently a tennis professional ranked in the top one hundred in the world. This event is Fox Meadow’s major contribution to Junior tennis development.

The June 1983 Compton tournament will be the thirty-eighth held. As it has each year, the program will carry these words:

“A Memorial Tournament in Memory of John Parker Compton, Pfc, 88th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. A boy who loved tennis ..”

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

Innovations to Parent-Child Tournament

In 1946, Tournament Chairman Lamar Fearing introduced an innovation to the Club’s popular Parent-Child tournaments: any member who lacked a child of playing age could borrow one from another member.

At Fox Meadow, paddle meant not just championship competition but an aspect of the game fostered by the Old Army Athletes, the inclusion of young and old, good and mediocre.

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

Interest in the game from north of the border

The APTA had an inquiry from Department of Agriculture, in Quebec, Canada.

“Having been in charge of this district for the Province of Quebec Lawn Tennis Association,” said the letter, “I am convinced that paddle tennis will be popular but the older members are skeptic about the whole thing.”

Blanchard recalled how similar this was to Fox Meadow’s initial take on the game.

Source: Fessenden S. Blanchard Platform Paddle Tennis, 1959

Let rule adopted for ball over the backstop

As play improved, balls were occasionally bounced over the 12-foot wiring, ending a rally and making it necessary to chase the ball for some distance. This was corrected when the APTA adopted a rule regarding balls bouncing over the backstop:

“A ball which lands in court of play and bounces up and over side or back walls should be considered a ‘let ball’ and the point replayed.”

National Championships – American Lawn Tennis had coverage

1946

The Women’s National Championship was not played, but the Mixed was reinstated.

The Mixed was won by the Fox Meadow team of Lamar Fearing and Maizie Moore and marked the only time Maizie had beaten her sister Madge in a National Championship.

In a repeat of the 1945 final, the Greenwich team of Sutter and Maguire captured their second straight Men’s title, and third overall, with a five set win over the Fox Meadow team of Couch and O’Hearn, after being two sets down.

Commenting on the match in his 1959 book, Blanchard observed:

“O’Hearn was marvelous, mixed up his game. Couch tired himself out slamming overheads ineffectively without resorting to drop shot (drop volley) variations, though his forehand was fine and fast dropping. Sutter and Maguire were steady and kept lobbing.”

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

Oscar F. Moore, APTA President (1946-1948)

Oscar F. Moore elected APTA President (1946-1948)

Moore was President through some important growth years and was credited with developing the mixed Scrambles or Jamboree event. This format gave the game much of its social overtones and proved to be very popular. Few people had given so much of their time and energy, or been more identified with or dedicated to platform tennis.