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Sports

When Fall's Chill Sets In, These Athletes Paddle On

Platform tennis gains popularity in Glen Ellyn, with a free clinic at Maryknoll Park on Sept. 18.

Shades of pink and purple smear a sunset sky as four Glen Ellyn dads dart around the village's Maryknoll Park inside what looks like a fenced-in, mini-tennis court.   

On one side of the net, Marty Engel holds his paddle, shaped like a flattened black lightbulb with holes, as a rubber ball bounces in bounds on the court and shoots past him.

In normal tennis, the point would have been lost. But this is not normal tennis. This is platform tennis.

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And so Engel glances at the ball as it bounces off the side screen of the court, and then spins diagonally and hits the back fence. As it bounces back toward him, Engel whips the paddle over his head and connects with the spongy sphere, which flies back over the net, bounces in and past the two men on the other side, spinning off the back screen at such an angle they can't return it. Engel and his teammate, Larry Page, have won the point.

"Nice!" shout Engel's opponents, Chuck Smith, 42, and Bill Giffin, 41.

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Together, the men comprise part of the Glen Ellyn Platform Tennis Club, one of a few that have started blossoming in Chicago's western suburbs. The growing number of men, women, kids and senior citizens who play the sport begin picking up their paddles around this time of year, starting with practices in September and a season that runs from October through mid-March.

For those who'd like an introduction to the sport, platform tennis player and club member Nancy O' Sullivan, 49, of Glen Ellyn, who was consistently ranked in the top 10 nationally before she retired from competitive play a few years ago, is holding a free platform tennis clinic at 6 p.m. Sept. 18 at Maryknoll, in conjunction with the Glen Ellyn Park District.

Part racquetball, part tennis and unlike anything else, platform tennis has been around for more than eight decades, but in recent years has been rediscovered in communities across America. Much of the allure of platform tennis, nicknamed "paddle" by its practitioners, in the Chicago area has to do with what people often complain about the most during the winter: the cold.

"What else," said Engel, 37, "is gonna get you outside in the middle of January, when there's three feet of snow, and it's 15 degrees out?"

O' Sullivan added that, " I used to say, 'There's nothing to do in the wintertime.' Ever since I started playing paddle, I've stopped saying it."

Platform tennis players tend to wear multiple layers, which are quickly shed as they play and perspire.

"Just because outside it's 15 degrees, 10 minutes into it, you're sweating like you're inside on a treadmill watching ESPN," added Larry Page, 51.

The workout comes from platform tennis' constant movement. There are no breaks when the ball bounces in and then out of the court, because it's allowed to spin off the side and back screens before an opponent hits a return. Even when a serve hits the net, called a "let," the ball plays on.

And frozen water isn't a hazard: one of the hallmarks of the game is a raised court of aluminum, about one-fourth the size of a tennis court, built so that heaters underneath can melt snow and ice on the court.

In the Chicago area, platform tennis began its journey in the country clubs of the North Shore. The past decade has seen the sport spread beyond those clubs, though they still host the playoff finals of the Chicago Platform Tennis Club leagues, which encompasses all of the clubs in the Chicago area.

Bill O'Brien, 67, of Burr Ridge, who's the president of the Hinsdale Platform Tennis Association (the other active platform tennis club in Chicago's western suburbs) said the sport's "future is really in what we could call public facilities, like park districts, that are easily accessible to the general public and where there's no exclusivity as far as who can join."

In Glen Ellyn, the growth has been rapid: from about 50 to 150 members in the Platform Tennis Club in three years. Glen Ellyn resident Nancy O'Sullivan said the club's next goal is to build two more courts at Maryknoll, as well as a paddle hut, which would provide players with restrooms and a heated gathering space where they could watch teammates play.

The whole venture, said O' Sullivan, would cost about $315,000, which the club is working on raising. The paddle hut, she said, "is essential for the growth of the sport. It's kind of a big draw to paddle because the sport is so much about the social aspect."  

In the meantime, more new players keep joining the sport, which Engel emphasizes is much more "a game of errors than a game of winners."

O'Brien compares it to chess. While platform tennis takes little time to pick up, it takes much longer to figure out how to maneuver opponents into causing errors and losing points.

"It's much more a game of strategy than power," said O' Brien. "It takes years to mature. But it's easy to learn. Right away, you're in the game, having fun."

To register for the free platform tennis clinic, which runs from 6 p.m.-7 p.m. Sept. 18 at MaryKnoll Park, 845 Pershing, and for more information on platform tennis lessons, call Mary Defiglia at the Glen Ellyn Park District at 734-858-2462, ext. 122. 

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