Chicago Charities – Wayne Dollard covered one of his favorite events

PTM Editor Wayne Dollard reported on one of his favorite tournaments:

The sun rose at 6:25 am on Wednesday, November 3rd over the Glenview Club as 76 women arrived to prepare for a long day of battle at the 33rd annual Chicago Charities tournament.

At first glance of the tournament draw sheet there were gaps that had previously been filled by top national ranking players: Aery, Shea, Hogan, Prendergast, Zink, Debbs, Mangan and Delaney. Was this Chicago Charities going to live up to the expectations set by the previous 32 events? After further review of the draw the #1, #4, #5, and #6 teams in the country were all represented. Perhaps more important, Chicago showed up with some fresh new talent taking the tour by storm.

On display the traditional first weekend of November was the power and depth of the Chicago area women’s field featuring: former State Champions Sally Cottingham and Chris Sheldon, 2004 National Champions Susie Keane and Mary Doten, and 2005 Nationals semi-finalist Terry Miller with Jane McNitt.

On a roll from their win at the 2005 APTA National Championships, the top-seeded team of Aila Main and Kerri Delmonico (New York City) were regarded as the team to beat.

The opening day proceeded as expected when the top four seeded women’s teams advanced to the quarterfinals. The scheduled matches were: Delmonico-Main (#1) vs. Budde-Goldberg, McNitt-Miller vs. Tarzian-Viant (#4), Cottingham-Sheldon (#3) vs. Doten-Keane and Frei-Sierks vs. Dardis-Shay (#2).

Like most tournaments, it is hard to top the late day thrill and excitement of quarter-final match play. These four no-holds barred match-ups began at 4:00 pm and exhibited driving and volleying skills that equaled the best competition seen on platform tennis courts in years.

With the top seeded teams Delmonico-Main advancing over Budde-Goldberg (6-2, 6-3) and Dardis-Shay defeating Frei-Sierks (7-5, 6-4), all eyes were glued to the six locals remaining in the quarter-finals.

After losing the first set 0-6 to the overpowering Chicago duo of McNitt and Miller, Tarzian and Viant rallied back 6-4 in the second to force a third set. The match ran past 6:00 pm before McNitt and Miller closed the door, 6-4.

Without a doubt, the most anticipated match of the day was on court one between Chicago rivals Cottingham-Sheldon and 2004 National Champions Doten-Keane. 2005

Cottingham and Sheldon were mentally poised to advance after recently winning the Milwaukee Women’s Open two weeks earlier when they defeated Doten-Schaefer in the semi-finals and McNitt-Miller in the finals.

In front of a capacity crowd, Cottingham and Sheldon lost a surprising anticlimactic 6-1, 6-3 battle, setting up the semi-final match-ups between Delmonico-Main vs. McNitt-Miller and Doten-Keane vs. Dardis-Shay

For Terri Miller, she saw her opportunity to get revenge against Kerri Delmonico and Aila Main who defeated her (with partner Nancy O’Suilivan) in the semifinals of the 2005 APTA Nationals Championships.

While Miller and Main put on a backhand driving exhibition, Delmonico and McNitt traded well-placed forehand drives on key points. After two hours of battling. Miller and McNitt walked away three-set victors (6-3, 3-6, 6-2).

The other semi-final match featured unseeded Doten and Keane defeating the second-seeded team of Dardis and Shay in straight sets. The finals were set as an all-Chicago event featuring two former world-ranked tennis players (Susie Keane #27 and Terry Miller #14) and their partners. In the end, sophomore superstar Terry Miller and veteran Jane McNitt dominated the field and walked away the victors. Look for this young team to excel and be a major threat at the 2006 APTA National Championships in Chicago.

The 2005 men’s Charities began on Saturday, November 5th and saw one of the deepest draws in recent memory. The eight seeded teams were Gambino- Ohlmuller, Goodspeed-Mansager, Cochrane-Marino, Fiedler-Stulac, Caldwell-Cordish, Browne-Estes, Hough- Rahaley and Englesberg-Kelly.

The top five seeded teams advanced to the quarter-finals as expected.

Although last season’s third and fourth-seeded teams were not in the draw, the addition of 2005 Nationals finalists Cochrane-Marino and the reemergence of Chicago spinmaster Brian Uihlein made up for the absence.

Saturday night quarter-final play saw one upset when the local unseeded team of Keevins-Uihlein defeated former National Champions Goodspeed-Mansager 6-3, 6-3. With this, semi-final action was set for Sunday morning between Fiedler-Stulac and Keevins-Uihlein and a 2005 APTA Nationals quarter-final rematch between Gambino-Ohlmuller and Cochrane-Marino.

The Chicago Charities semi-finals began at 10:00 am at the Glen View Club. In the first match, Fiedler and Stulac defeated Keevins and Uihlein 7-6, 6-7, 6-3 with an incredible display of reflex volleys, booming serves and clever drives.

In the second semi-final match-up, Cochrane and Marino continued their winning streak against Ohlmuller and Gambino by winning 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.

The finals pitted Canadian Mike Stulac with Bill Fiedler (Chicago) against New York native Mike Cochrane and partner Mike Marino (Chicago). The four men battled for two-and-one-half hours before Fiedler and Stulac closed the match in a third set tie-breaker 6-4, 5-7, 7-6.

The big winner for the weekend belonged to Chicago who fielded all four women’s finalists and two of the four men’s finalists.

Platform tennis is certainly on the rise in the Midwest with the competition getting deeper each passing season. Next season’s Charities promises to offer more new faces from the most exciting platform tennis region in the country.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol 7. Issue 3, January 2006

Platform Tennis Magazine goes online

During the summer, Platform Tennis Magazine launched their new web site www.ptmonline.com in partnership with the Pittsburgh-based web design firm Amixa, LLC.

A list of core features for the site were:
• An on-line store
• Tournament dates and information
• Rules of platform tennis
• History of platform tennis
• Featured articles from the most recent issue (summary only)
• Platform Tennis Magazine archives (for ordering)
• Advertising information for Platform Tennis Magazine
• A robust set of links to other platform tennis web sites

The website was not affiliated with the APTA

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol.7, Issue 1, September, 2005

The Premier Cup – players compete for $5,000

PTM Editor Wayne Dollard had the story:

On Saturday, October 8th, 16 of the top men in platform tennis competed for $5,000 in prize money at the first-annual Premier Cup. The group included last season’s #1, #2, #3, #5, #6, #8 and #11-ranked teams.

Nearly one year ago, David Dodge (owner of Premier Platform Tennis Courts) and Jason Gray (head professional at Four Bridges Country Club) were brainstorming on ways to bring improvements to platform tennis. In the spirit of tennis’ ATP tour, the two men came up with the “Premier Purple” court color. The demand for the new look has been overwhelming
on Dodge. He explained, “Wherever I go, I am being asked to repaint old brown and green courts with the new Premier Purple. The more vibrant color is not only refreshing but it also makes line calls easier because of the ball contrast on the court.”

At the 2005 National Championships in Pittsburgh, Dodge and Gray introduced the “service gap” a six-inch erased portion of the alley line behind where it meets the corner of the service box. The line gap has made calling serves in or out around the outside corners of the service boxes easier.

Having made innovative changes to the court, Dodge and Gray decided they wanted to do something that hadn’t been done in 20 years and host an invitation-only prize money tournament for the men’s top players. Dodge agreed up front to sponsor the $5,000 purse. Reebok, Viking and Michelob Ultra followed suit. Finally, the top eight 2005-ranked teams were invited and the event was scheduled at Gray’s courts at Four Bridges Country Club in West Chester, Ohio.

With 11 of the top 16-ranked men making the event, the success of the Premier Cup was guaranteed. Following a 10-game pro-set, round-robin format the teams were divided into two brackets based on the previous season’s ranking.

The tournament produced some of the most exciting play ever witnessed on the platform tennis court as the 2005 Nationals winners (Mike Stulac and Bill Anderson) met up against the National finalists (Mike Cochrane and Mike Marino) twice, once in the round robin, and once in a third-place playoff. The finalists defeated the National Champions in both match-ups. When #6-ranked Scott Mackesy could not make the event with partner Scott Estes, former National Champion Bill Fiedler was called in to partner with Estes. The pair had a close loss to Goodspeed / Mansager before winning 10-1 over David Ohlmuller and Chris Gambino and 10-2 over Rob Pierce and Greg Bennett. In the semi-finals, Estes and Fiedler cooled the smokin’ hot team of Cochrane and Marino 6 2, 6-2 Perhaps the biggest surprise of the tournament was the dominating performance of Flip Goodspeed and Scott Mansager who lost 13 games in the three-match round robin before tightening up and dropping only five games in semi-final and finals action.

All players viewed the event as a tremendous success. Gray said, ‘This is the first time in 20 years that this format has been tried. Not only will we repeat the event next season, but right now I am also in the works to add a women’s Premier Cup competition.”

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 7, Issue 2, November 2005

By dawn’s early light…. The Paterson Club, Fairfield, NJ

Rex Savorum, paddle enthusiast, reported from The Paterson Club (Fairfield, CT):

If it’s true that “necessity is the Mother of invention,” then jam-packed weekend calendars for families in Fairfield County, Connecticut, was the catalysis for starting Sunrise Paddle. Beginning the week before Daylight Savings Time, and running through mid-March, a hardy group of passionate paddlers arrive in the paddle hut at 5:30 AM on Saturday mornings for coffee, donuts and stretching.

Accompanied by an eclectic mix of Rock, Blues, Punk, Reggae and (very little) Rap music piped out to the platform courts, play starts at 6:00 AM sharp and normally runs to 8:00 AM, or whenever the blinding early morning winter sunrise makes it near impossible to play. This unique “paddle cult,” now going into its third year at The Patterson Club (Fairfield, CT), started with a member e-mail blast to over 100 fellow paddlers that make up Patterson’s Men’s Paddle League. While there were many humorous and rather “colorful” replies nixing the idea, there were four paddlers willing to give it a go.

Through the club’s monthly newsletter the original four gained further notoriety and support through the paraphrasing of the legendary Grantland Rice:

Outlined against the ebon pre-dawn sky of winter, the Four Horsemen ride again. In dramatic- lore they ore known as Famine, Pestilence Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Joe Murphy, Matt Terry, Sean Kelley and Mike Hoover.

They form the crest of The Patterson Club’s newest paddle tennis movement: Sunrise Paddle. While it’s not a sanctioned league per se, some narcoleptic slumberous skeptics refer to it as a radical movement (or even a cult). Devotees affectionately call it: “The Dawn Patrol.”

Within the first weeks of play, the number of participants doubled and then quickly tripled. The goal of the founders was reached as all platform courts are full in the predawn hours most Saturday mornings. It seems the growing “paddle mania” at The Patterson Club is becoming a 365 days/year activity as play has now carried over into the summer months… Sunrise Paddle has now given birth to “Summer Paddle”. The goal this upcoming winter paddle season is to host the first Sunrise Paddle inter-club match.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 7, Issue 2, November, 2005

APTA Annual Meeting

APTA Secretary Taylor Bowen reported:

The APTA Board of Directors held its Annual Meeting and work sessions May 20-21, 2005, at the Glen View Club near Chicago. In addition to working through the usual tasks of scheduling next season’s tournaments, debating rule changes, and planning enhanced member services, the Board also took action on two especially exciting developments.

First, in a move designed to foster the growth of paddle in the South, the Board approved the creation of a new APTA region Region VII which is defined as Virginia (excluding Northern Virginia/metro Washington, DC) and south along the Atlantic Coast. The “deep South” has had active paddle communities for decades but in the past several years has seen an increase in number of players, court installations and participation by southern teams in APTA tournaments. Charlottesville, Richmond, Winston-Salem and Atlanta form the base of Region VII, with additional southern cities such as Chapel Hill and Greensboro considering installing courts.

For 2006 and 2007 Region VII men will combine forces with Region VI (West) to field a joint Men’s President’s Cup Team. The Region VII Men’s Tournament Chair is Andy Todd of Richmond. Region VII Women’s President’s Cup will be under development until a core group of women tournament players is formed.

Taylor Bowen of Charlottesville will serve as Region VII President in 2005-06. Visit the southern paddle blog site for more information about activities in Region VII: www platformtennissouth blogspot.com.

Second, Chris Casiraghi and Jim Reilly of Reilly Green Mountain (RGM), a court manufacturing and maintenance firm, announced the Reilly Green Mountain Public Court Challenge. In an effort to support the APTAs initiatives to grow the game through municipal paddle, RGM is offering, on an annual basis, to install two courts at a deserving public facility for a no-cost trial period of two years. At the end of the two years the facility can purchase the courts or RGM will relocate them to another community.

Communities are invited to submit applications to be considered for the RGM Public Court Challenge. The deadline is February 1, 2006. RGM will announce the winning locale at the Nationals in Chicago in March 2006. You may obtain more information about the RGM Challenge on the APTA Web site.

Other highlights of the APTA Meeting include:

Finances from Red to Green
• The APTA ended the past fiscal year (2004-05) more than $13,000 in the black.

Tournament Play
• The 2005-06 tournament schedule was approved, featuring more than 115 APTA-sanctioned events from October through April.
• It is hoped that APTA-certified umpires will call all semi-finals and finals matches at next year’s open Nationals.
• B Nationals. The Board discussed the reasons why this relatively new event has not drawn teams nationally as well as who would be willing to host the event next year. Later in the spring the Board decided not to schedule the B Nationals in the 2005-06 season but to revisit the topic at the 2006 Annual Meeting.

Member Services
• A new web design firm was contracted to update and host the APTA web site. The site has been greatly improved and features easy navigation to a wealth of platform tennis information, APTA member services and downloads.
• The Board approved the creation of an APTA Associate Marketing Director position. The AMD will spearhead the APTA’s efforts to enhance member communications by posting
interesting and timely content on the APTA Web site over the course of the season.
• APTA-sponsored Exhibitions will continue this season. First up is Minneapolis on Saturday, October 22, followed by Norwich, VT/Hanover, NH, which is slated for Friday, November 4. Buffalo and Syracuse are also under consideration for exhibitions.
• A National Platform Tennis Center and Hall of Fame Museum is under consideration as a home for a Hall of Fame as well as a 4-8 court facility. Sites in Scarsdale, Greenburg, Darien, New Rochelle and Philadelphia are being considered. A final location is expected to be named by the Hall of Fame Committee by the end of the year.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 7, Issue 1, September, 2005

The game expands in Canada

Nestled in the center of the Niagara Region, the Niagara Platform Tennis Club (NPTC) will open its doors this fall as Canada’s first new platform tennis facility in over 10 years. Located just 30 minutes from Buffalo, one hour from Toronto and just 15 minutes from Niagara Falls, the NPTC can offer plenty of enjoyment for both platform tennis enthusiasts and fans.

[enlarge image to read full story]

Source: The Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 7, Issue 1, September, 2005

Junior Nationals – Patty Hogan reported on a new milestone

The 2005 Junior Nationals hit a new milestone with over 200 players participating in seven divisions. The event was a huge success thanks to the cooperation of over 20 volunteers, which included a combination of caring parents and PPTA pros. Special thanks goes to Marjorie Hodson for her help in setting the schedules for each of the nine different tournament sites!The event was a huge success thanks to the cooperation of over 20 volunteers, which included a combination of caring parents and PPTA pros.

[enlarge image to seethe 2005 National Champions and Finalists for each age group and division]. Congratulations to all the juniors for a great day of paddle and amazing sportsmanship!The 2005 Junior Nationals hit a new milestone with over 200 players participating in seven ditnsions.

Source: Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 6, Issue 5, April, 2005

Hall of Fame Inductees: Patty Hogan, David and Bill Childs, and Charles Vasoll

In two recent events held at the Beacon Hill Club in Summit, NJ, and the Fox Meadow Tennis Club in Scarsdale, NY, the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame recognized the outstanding achievements of four individuals through their induction into the Platform Tennis Hall of Fame.

On February 19, 2005, at the time of the Women’s Senior National Championships at Beacon Hill, ‎Patty Hogan was honored before a large and enthusiastic lunchtime gathering of her peers in an induction speech delivered by Steve Baird.

On March 5, 2005, David Childs, Bill Childs and Charles Vasoll were honored in ceremonies during the evening social gathering of participants in the Senior Men’s Nationals at the Fox Meadow Club. Before a large an appreciative crowd oftheir peers, the Childs’ induction presentation was delivered by Brook Kindred. Charles Vasoll’s induction presentation was delivered by Bob Brown. Vasoll’s induction was kept secret until the actual event, and he was tearfully surprised at the honor and the previously unknown presence of his wife and family.

Source: Bob Brown, Platform Tennis Magazine, Vol. 6, Issue 5, April, 2005