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Racket sport for ‘thinkers’ holds national event
Mar 10th
Kelly Kenny makes a return during a platform tennis tournament at the Lake Forest Club. The Chicago area is a hotbed for the sport. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times
Top-ranked paddle players from around the country will assemble in north suburban Golf this weekend as the Glen View Club hosts the 2011 Men’s and Women’s Open National Platform Tennis Championships today through Sunday.
Platform tennis, commonly known as paddle, is the only racket sport enjoyed outdoors in cold weather, with seasons running from October until mid-March. Strictly a doubles game, it is played on an elevated 30-foot-by-60-foot aluminum deck, enclosed by 12-foot-high chicken wire. This adds a dimension of strategy foreign to traditional tennis, as players are free to use their 18-inch rackets to play a sponge rubber ball off the wall.
Platform tennis originated in 1928, with Chicago enjoying its first organized play in 1972. The rapid development of many heated courts at local country clubs and park districts has elevated Chicago, which is hosting the tournament for the second time in six years, to one of the hotbeds for the sport’s growth.
“It’s taken off in Chicago more than anywhere else,” said Drew Eberly, half of the country’s fourth-ranked doubles team. “We have a perfect climate for paddle. It also has a lot to do with Chicago country-club pros. With the way the sport is emerging, a lot of tennis pros spend winters teaching paddle. Also, a lot of park district courts are now available for public play.”
Eberly and doubles partner Peter Berka will account for one of the 128 men’s and 98 women’s teams competing this weekend. Eberly, a Lake Forest resident, played a bit of paddle growing up, but made a full transition after completing a successful tennis career at Ohio State.
A transition such as Eberly’s is what fellow player and tournament chair John Noble points to when encouraging people to become involved.
“The misnomer that playing paddle confuses your tennis game is difficult,” Noble said. “It’s about putting a racket in your hands and learning the hand-eye coordination and balance it takes to play a racket sport.”
Noble does offer his best analogy to those familiar with tennis and not paddle.
“Tennis is to checkers as paddle is to chess,” Noble said.
While both sports are governed by the love-15-30-40 scoring systems, the leverage of a wall makes for more time between points in paddle, and essentially more time to plan your next move.
“In tennis, you have some strategy but it’s quick and you can overpower opponents,” Noble said. “You can’t really overpower someone on the paddle court. There’s more thinking involved and more time to think because the points last longer. ”
Chicago boasts 21 men’s and 13 women’s leagues, consisting of about 10 teams each. With about 12 players on each team, there are more than 4,000 people playing paddle in the area. Traditionally a country club sport, the park districts of Winnetka, Hinsdale, Glen Ellyn and Lake Bluff have adopted programs. Health clubs — including Five Seasons, Midtown and Lake Shore Athletic Club — also offer programs.
This weekend’s competition is open to public viewing and admission is free.
A full schedule of the events can be found at www.platformtennis.org.
From www.suntimes.com
Tennis Capsules: No. 1 Nadal holds on to beat Murray at ATP finals
Nov 27th
LONDON (AP) — After relentlessly running each other all over the court for more than three hours in a match that flip-flopped throughout, Rafael Nadal got the breaks he needed Saturday to beat Andy Murray 7-6 (5), 3-6, 7-6 (6).
The top-ranked Spaniard, who won this year’s U.S. Open to complete a career Grand Slam, had to overcome a mid-match slump to reach the final of the ATP World Tour Finals for the first time.
“Today I played one of the best matches of my career,” said Nadal, who has never won the season-ending event for the top eight players in the world.
The French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion will face Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic in Sunday’s final at the O2 Arena.
Both players looked unbeatable throughout the first set, which Nadal won in a tiebreaker despite a late surge from Murray. But Nadal started to falter after holding serve to lead 3-2 in the second. Murray won 17 of the next 23 points — and four straight games — to take the set and even the score.
Nadal never looked as good after the mid-match slump, but he managed to break Murray to take a 2-1 lead in the third set. The Spaniard then had his first match point on Murray’s serve while leading 5-3, but the fifth-ranked Briton managed to hold the game, break back to 5-5 and force the final tiebreaker.
“I probably played one bad game the whole match, or maybe just a couple of bad points,” Murray said. “But, yeah, it was great tennis. I think both of us played well pretty much from the beginning of the match.”
In the tiebreaker, Murray won the first three points — two of them on Nadal’s serve — and looked like he was going to roll to victory. But Nadal clawed back to 4-4 before getting another match point at 6-5.
Murray again saved that one, but he couldn’t do anything about the final match point, which Nadal won with an inside-out forehand.
Murray finished with 22 aces but he also had 47 unforced errors to go along with his 53 winners. Overall, the Briton won 114 points in the match, five more than Nadal.
“It was one of those matches where you kind of knew — so many long rallies, so many good points — I kind of knew when I was out there that it was a great match,” Murray said. “It’s nice in some ways to be involved in matches like that. But it’s not nice losing them.”
In the first set, Nadal and Murray traded forehands and backhands but neither allowed the other even one break point.
The second set started much the same, although Nadal did waste the first two break points of the match in the second game. Murray then broke serve to lead 4-3, and then broke again to take the set.
“I played a great match today,” Murray said. “Whether it’s the best match I played and lost, I don’t know. But it was a great match.”
In doubles, Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia beat top-ranked Bob and Mike Bryan of the United States 6-3, 3-6, 12-10. In the late match, Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski of Poland were to play Mahesh Bhupathi of India and Max Mirnyi of Belarus.
Murray relishes battle with the best
LONDON (AP) — When Andy Murray says he is competing against the two best players of all time, there is no hint of self-pity.
The 23-year-old Briton had not long walked off court following an agonizing three-set loss to top-ranked Rafael Nadal in the semifinals of the ATP World Tour Finals.
He had hit more winners, more aces, and even won more points, and yet, still, his relentless opponent emerged the victor, winning the deciding third-set tiebreaker.
“Today is the reason why I play tennis,” said Murray, who lost 7-6 (5), 3-6, 7-6 (8). “It was a great match to finish the year. But I need to improve because I’m competing with the two best players of all time. So if I want to win these tournaments, I want to win the Grand Slams, I need to get better.”
Murray also came up short against Nadal at Wimbledon earlier this year in another close match that demonstrated the Spanish player’s uncanny ability to raise his game at the most vital moments.
At the Australian Open in January, Murray got the better of Nadal in the quarterfinals — only to come up against Roger Federer in the final.
Murray’s only other Grand Slam final came against Federer in the 2008 U.S. Open, and a straight-set defeat duly followed.
As his search for a first Grand Slam title continues, so does Britain’s 74-year wait for a men’s singles major winner.
Nadal told a packed crowd inside London’s O2 Arena on Saturday that they shouldn’t “put pressure on Andy” because “he’s going to win a lot of Grand Slams, in my opinion.”
Murray insisted that he did not feel any pressure from the crowd, which seemed to share its support equally between the home player and the popular Nadal.
“It’s not the British public, I don’t think, that puts pressure on me,” he said. “The support that I got on the court today meant a lot. I just think it makes a huge difference.”
It didn’t turn out to be a big enough difference on Saturday, but Nadal said Murray is getting closer and closer to his big breakthrough.
“He can do everything,” Nadal said. “He can attack well. He can volley really well. … You have to all the time find solutions to play against him and to try to beat him, no? I think he’s a great champion.”
And if Murray is hoping that Nadal will just fade away, he isn’t showing it.
“I just love playing against him,” Murray said of Nadal. “As a sportsman … I don’t know if there’s been many better than him ever in terms of the way he conducts himself. I have a lot of respect for him. When I play against him, I really, really enjoy it.”
– Carolina Cheese
Rome holds gay tennis tournament
Oct 1st
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Print | IANS Rome holds gay tennis tournament 2010-10-01 11:10:00
Rome, Oct 1 (IANS/AKI) Over 250 players from various countries will take part in a tennis tournament for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, ‘aimed at equality and fighting homophobia’, in the Italian capital city.
The ‘A Smash for Civil Rights’ tournament, organised by the Yellow Tennis Rome and Gay Project advocacy groups, Rome city council and the Province of Rome, kicked off Thursday.
‘The hope is that Rome can become the capital of sport aimed at equality and fighting homophobia,’ said Gay Project president Imma Battaglia.
She hoped Rome would host the 2020 Olympics and the Gay Games at the same time.
Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno and Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna will be among the top officials attending the event, which was taking place at two tennis clubs, the Tennis Club Garden and Sporting Club La Torre.
Yellow Tennis Rome said its mission was to involve people of all ages, races, sexual orientation, gender and religious beliefs in tennis.
The group organises a national tennis tournament every year during the Rome Gay Pride week in June.
A doubles tournament would also be held during Oct 29-31 in Salerno city.
All About: Europe,Romania
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Tennis royalty holds court in Central Park
Sep 3rd
By Bill Dwyre
Los Angeles Times
(MCT)
NEW YORK — Thursday morning, well before summer in the city got dirty and gritty, dozens of young girls gathered at the Central Park public tennis courts to await visiting royalty.
Around 8:30 a.m., the two queens arrived, first Billie Jean King and then Steffi Graf.
Make that Stefanie Graf, who, the program director/master of ceremonies explained to the gathering, “does not like to be called Steffi. Other people put that on her.”
Like the Wizard of Westwood who didn’t want to be a wizard but could never quite shed the label, Stefanie Graf will never quite stop being Steffi. Millions of mentions in the media over the last 30 years have burned “Steffi” into our consciousness like we were compact discs.
This is not the U.S. Open, which was taking place miles away. But it was happening because of it. Big events draw big names, and some big names are willing to leave the luxury suites and the cocktail parties to spread tennis gospel to the masses. Thursday, Graf and King did so.
A group of top players, girls from about ages 7 to 17, were chosen for a clinic. The watchmaker Longines sponsored the day, a few cameras showed up and tennis was preached. That happens all over the country, but not often in the presence of, and with the help of, the likes of Graf and King.
The master of ceremonies introduced them as “two of the greatest tennis players on the planet.”
Hard to argue.
When King stepped away from the game in 1983, with a few stop-and-start appearances after that, she had won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam doubles titles and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. She is 66 now, coming back strong from double knee transplant surgery in February and still championing every cause she deems worthy and can fit into a nonstop schedule.
When Graf called it quits in 1999, there were no later starts and stops. She laughs about calling boyfriend — now husband — Andre Agassi after leaving the San Diego tournament that year and saying she was stopping.
“I told him, ‘That’s it,’ ” she said Thursday. Agassi thought she meant she was going to stop playing for a while and rehab her injuries. “I said, ‘No, that’s it.’ “
And so it was, Graf, now 41, retiring with 22 Grand Slam singles titles and a Joe DiMaggio-like 376 weeks as the No. 1 player in the world. In 1988, she won all four majors, plus the gold medal in women’s singles in the Seoul Olympics. Nobody else has done that. Only one other person has won all four majors at least once — but not in the same year — plus an Olympic gold medal in singles. That would be her husband.
Graf told the lucky attendees that she started playing when she was about 6 but didn’t really like it until later.
“I lost the first match I played in a tournament,” she said. “I didn’t want to play until later. When I got to be 13, I realized I was good at it.”
King had a similar message.
“The first summer I played in tournaments,” she said, “I won only one match. But the more I lost, the more fired up I got.”
Graf said she sometimes misses the closer connections to tennis.
“It has given me great memories,” she said. “It has also given me a great life. Because of tennis, I met my husband and have my two children. And I also have my foundation (Children for Tomorrow).”
King’s main message to the girls was that “champions adjust.” She said you can go one of two ways when you are about to receive serve on break point.
“You can say, ‘Please, God, make them double fault.’ Or, you can want the ball.”
She said that wanting the ball carries over into real life.
Soon, it was time to go to work.
Graf, who stayed for several hours as the heat began to sizzle, went to the baseline and did what every club pro has done thousands of times. She hit balls. And hit and hit, as the girls chased and returned. It was unmistakable, even with this sort of pitty-pat tennis. Fraulein Forehand, as tennis media legend Bud Collins christened her years ago, still had it, looking as if she could still make the quarterfinals of that big tournament out in Flushing Meadows.
King stuck around for a while, too, signing every autograph and chatting with anybody not too shy to approach.
One young man, 6-year-old Donovan, short, bristly dark hair and wide, dark eyes, waited patiently for an autograph. King responded with a flourish, writing her advice above the BJK autograph: “GO FOR IT!!!”
It was that sort of triple-exclamation-point day for all, courtesy of Graf and King.
___
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
Visit the Los Angeles Times on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com/.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Ellsworth council holds public hearing
Jul 26th
ELLSWORTH?- The regular monthly meeting of the Ellsworth City Council kicked off with a public hearing on the proposed sale and transfer of real estate at 1622 Delphi Street that’s now owned by the city.
With no objections, the council approved transferring the property to interested parties.
The council discussed street improvements for Detroit Street and named Schlotfeldt Engineering as the engineer. The August council meeting was set for a public hearing authorizing borrowing $100,000 for street improvements from the Cooperative Telephone Revolving Loan Fund.
In another property matter on the agenda, Lyle Groth was in attendance to offer his opinion on making the city hall accessible. His advice is to make an entrance on the north side of city hall rather than install a chair lift on the front of the city hall. The council decided to get two estimates for a handicap entrance on the north side and two estimates for an entrance on the east side of the building coming off the alley. Further discussion on the issue will be held at the August council meeting, which will be held in the library.
Because there was an inquiry about improvements to the town’s tennis courts, Tennis Services of Iowa was contacted. After inspecting the courts, the company submitted a proposal to fill the cracks, patch the low areas, apply one layer of acrylic resurfacer, two coats of green and red acrylics, and the white playing lines applied for $4,800. The council tabled action but plans to take it up again at their August meeting.
Also, the city did not receive an I-Jobs grant for a new water tower. Plans are to contact Water Tower Paint and Repair to see if the 2009 contract for maintenance work on the water storage tank is still valid, so no action was taken.
Contact Billie Shelton at editor@freemanjournal.net or call 832-4350.
