Paddling to Stone Harbor: Seven Mile Beach Hosts a Pro Platform Tennis Tourney Aug. 12-13
Women’s pro Ana Zubori hits a “tweener” shot between her legs off the wires.
Not all paddle references involve water.
Prepare for the treat of professional paddle ball, aka platform tennis, Aug. 12 and 13 in downtown Stone Harbor.
The ProFlight Platform Tennis Tournament unfolds at the 96th Street paddle courts Aug. 12 at 4pm and Aug. 13 at 10am.
The country’s best players lift a unique sport to art form right in the heart of Seven Mile Beach.
While the pros play for prize money, the public gains free admission. This is the third year of a competition that routinely draws a couple hundred fans.
Spectators are asked to enter on 97th Street near the basketball courts.
The field includes four-time national champion Drew Broderick and several top-ranked players in the sport. This year’s tournament will also include three of the country’s top women’s teams, according to tournament organizer Tom King.
Platform tennis, or “paddle,” has been around since 1928. The sport resembles tennis with the added dimension of being able to play the ball off the “wires,” the walls resembling a cage around each court.
It leverages vintage tennis skills like spins, drop shots, kick serves, and lobs. An overwhelming majority of the sport’s top players come from tennis backgrounds.
Anyone who has ever played tennis, racquetball, paddle ball, jai alai, and squash, among other sports, can appreciate the unusual parameters of this game.
The court is roughly 35% the size of a tennis court. That brings interesting variables into play.
The wires serve as borders, bringing more life to the volleying end of the game. A shot that would clear the court in regular tennis bounces back into play, preserving the length of points and bringing new shots into the presentation.
Take a hop off the back “wall,” let it bounce, lob a shot to the opposite back wall, slam a shot down the line, or take a carom off the side and drill a cross-court winner.
But even the slam might be nuanced. Hit the shot too hard and it may bounce toward a competitor. Finesse and placement count.
The ideal shot dies in the corner of the back wall.
These are only some of the game’s unique characteristics.
“The athleticism is unbelievable,” says King, an Avalon second homeowner who coaxed Stone Harbor to build these courts a couple of years ago. He was joined by advocates like Stone Harbor resident Laura Owens and platform-tennis superstar Bobo Delaney.
An Avalon homeowner, Delaney also is a 2016 Platform Tennis Hall of Fame inductee. She endorsed platform tennis in the discussions leading up to the court construction here and remains an ambassador for the sport.
The advocates persuaded the borough to build one of the rare courts found outside of Central New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Area residents can rent it to play all year long. The facility not only brings some revenue back into the borough but creates a wave of excitement during tournament time.
Rarely can a jurisdiction boast about sporting the nation’s top players.
But Stone Harbor can.
“These pros can make the most impossible shots,” King says. “They can reach a ball two inches off the ground, they can return shots between their legs, and you can witness some unbelievably long volleys.
“You may see the players lobbing shots back and forth, just trying to get their opponents out of position, and when they reach the right moment, you see a flurry of 100-mph shots.”
Some of the artistry is astounding, he contends.
“One of the most incredible shots I see is one in which the players can slash the ball in such a way that it lands on one side of the court, hops back over the net and lands on the other side without and opponent being able to hit it,” King says. “These men and women make that shot look easy. If I tried to do it, the ball would end up in Sea Isle.”
King, from Malvern, Pa., knows all about the towns in the Seven Mile Times and Sea Isle Times readership area. He owns 23K Studios, a Pennsylvania based ad agency that services Fortune 100 companies. Like many Keystone State residents, he vacationed here as a youth and later purchased property here.
He and his wife, Joni, built an Avalon home eight years ago. They have three grown children, ages 22 to 30, who all play platform tennis.
King grew up playing tennis, but abandoned it once platform fever kicked in. He helps organize the ProFlight Circuit throughout Pennsylvania and nearby states.
The tie-back here is a dream-come-true scenario for King, who was able to transplant the love of a Pennsylvania activity and fan base right to Seven Mile Beach.
“My friends and I used to have to leave here to go back to Pennsylvania and play,” he recalls. “That is how obsessed we are with the sport.
“It is so wonderful to be able to come play it here now. There are not many places in the world in which you can leave your house, drive an hour and 45 minutes, and you are on your boat, fishing or being on the bay.
“Avalon and Stone Harbor are such wonderful shore towns with great people.”
King says the pros feel the same way. They love coming here to kick off a campaign that will run for several months.
And the tourists love coming to witness it.
Nothing inspires one’s game more than watching the pros give it a sense of panache.