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Platform
tennis
The birth
From Paddle tennis developed Platform
tennis, which is sometimes described as a combination of tennis and
squash. It was developed by two American sports enthusiasts, Fessenden
Blanchard and James Cogs well, at Scarsdale in New York, in the year 1928.
Until the 1960s, the game was played mainly in the north-eastern parts of
United States. The game began to gain popularity when the American
Platform Tennis Association was founded in 1934. The Association regulates
the game.
The
game
To play the game, the
players (two in each team) use paddles to hit a ball back and forth over a
net. The
paddles are larger than those used for table tennis. They are made of oval
plywood, metal-bound and have short handles. There are round small holes
on the striking surface.
The ball used in the game is usually an orange or yellow colored
sponge rubber ball. Play and scoring are on the same lines as for tennis,
with two differences. Here, a player has only one serve per point (as
against two that is allowed in tennis) and a player may return a ball that
has landed in the court and bounced against a wire fence that surrounds
the court.
The
court
Platform tennis is played outdoors, on specially constructed platforms
that measure sixty feet by thirty feet. The court is surrounded by a
tightly strung wire netting that measures a height of twelve feet. The
actual court measures forty four feet in length and twenty feet in width
and the net two feet ten inches high.
The
sport is a favored one during winter, when it becomes impossible to play
many others. It can be played in cold weather and the snow can be swept
off the platform.
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