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. 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 …
