At the Annual Meeting in May, the Board of Directors of the APTA voted to continue the rule established at the 1996 meeting, which eliminated the let on a net cord service.
The motion agreed upon left the door open for a further review in May 1998; however, the Directors were much stronger in support of the rule change than they were when they first instituted it.
Part of the reason for their change in approach was due to the fact that tennis was also moving ahead with abolishing the let. The USTA Senior Father and Son circuit would be experimenting with the "no let" service on a trial basis in its 1997 national championships, and the men's and women's senior divisions of the U.S. Open instituted the change in 1996. The APTA Board was not as "far out" in making this change as some players thought.
Source: Platform Tennis News, Summer 1997
“Give us more” was the general opinion of the first platform tennis clinic conducted for teaching professionals by Wilson Sporting Goods in Chicago to kick off the 1997-98 season.
"It fits in with a lot of trends that we're seeing in the game," said John Embree, General Manager of Racquet Sports for Wilson, because “…..Chicago is a hotbed of the sport, as evidenced by this clinic, the annual Charities event, and this season's National Championships being played here.”
What the 30 pros from seven states got was absolutely spotless weekend weather, expert advice on everything from drills to strategy to running programs, and the opportunity to hear two former National Champions and current teaching pros, Rich Maier and Hank Irvine, dispense a wealth of knowledge about what makes a teaching pro good.
Source: Platform Tennis News, Fall 1997
Green Mountain Platform Tennis, a leading court manufacturer and maintenance company, released a new instructional video for paddle players, the proceeds of which would be donated to the APTA to support junior paddle throughout the country.
“Bring Your Game to the Next Level” featured platform tennis pros Robin Fulton, Connie Jones, and George Zink.
In the 45-minute video, these leading players offered up the skills, strategies and drills to help platform enthusiasts at all levels play better.
Source: Platform Tennis News, Fall 1997
Because of the differing size of each region and number of players from which to draw a team, the qualifications differed from region to region, but the top 16 ranked individual men, and the top eight nationally ranked women, were not eligible regardless of their region.
The Fall edition of Platform Tennis News carried descriptions of each region’s criteria for qualification
Mike Dougherty reported from Colorado and Eric Stern from Gaeufelden, Germany.
Letter to Chuck Vasoll from Mike Dougherty:
“Chuck,
Things are moving forward on the paddle front out here (Colorado). I've placed a couple of ads for platform tennis courts, adult leagues and have a junior program January 24th at the Boulder courts. Viking is donating eight junior paddles. We hope to run 96 Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other area youth……”
Letter from Eric Stern to Carolyn Tierney:
“Dear Carolyn:
My father, Harold Stern, has successfully installed the first two R.J. Reilly aluminum platform tennis courts in Gaeufelden, Germany. At the opening in 1996, we had some of the top U.S. players showing us how the game is being played on beginners' and competitive levels.
George Zink did a terrific job in demonstrating this new sport. His enthusiasm infected a lot of players [...]
During October, local tournaments were held in six states at thirteen different clubs. The winners from each tournament—35 teams—arrived at Fox Meadow Tennis Club for the finals in November. Robin Fulton had conceived of the event and was the tournament chair.
Viking Athletics was the primary sponsor, and David Kjeldsen, CEO, spent the day at Fox Meadow supporting all the activities.
Carly Swain filed this report in the Mid-Winter edition of Platform Tennis News:
“The field was very strong on the ‘senior’ side, with many nationally ranked players in the draw, but it was the ‘juniors’ who were the stars. Twelve teams competed in the 12 and under category. The final four were Tim McAvoy/David Hissey, up against Phil/Tyler Gaffney. The final score was in favor of repeat winners, McAvoy/Hissey, 6-1, 6-1. The 15-and-under draw was the largest, with 15 teams and the "c[...]
Viking had started making balls soon after they acquired the Marcraft platform tennis business in 1995. C0-incidentally, Wilson had acquired the Vittert V30 ball business from Hedstrom about the same time and decided to stop selling balls to Viking, which had been a long-time reseller, as they were a competitor.
The New Viking ball was well received and was used in the 1997 Men's and Women's Nationals but later batches were even better! They were on a roll.
However the ball manufacturing business was a difficult one and bad batches of balls had a habit of showing up unexpectedly.
David Kjeldsen recalls Viking's experience just when he thought he had finally found the "perfect" ball……..
"No matter who the manufacturer was, there always seemed to surface a bad batch of balls. In the Hedstrom days bad would mean excessive "chunking". In the early Viking days it would mean [...]
Thanks in great measure to the tireless efforts of Winnie Hatch who reportedly wrote every female senior paddler on the APTA list, and anyone else she could think of, the APTA now has a new senior age group for women, the 60+.
The first attempt at a Women's 60+ Nationals was during the 1991-1992 season in Philadelphia. For the next five years Ann Brown at Fox Meadow Tennis Club tried to get enough teams for the event without success and finally Ann Brown and Winnie Hatch gathered together enough participants to hold a National Tournament at FMTC in March 1998.
Source: Platform Tennis News, Spring 1998
PTN Spring 1998 covered the Men's and Women's Nationals:
Chicago brought its own special flavor to the 1998 National Championships. Players beat an early week blizzard and braved exceptionally cold weather on both Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday night party was stylish with a swing band, very special speeches, and even a hand-made sweater for Chairperson Sonja Fischer. The night brought old friends together and helped new acquaintances to form.
With a men's entry of 128 teams and an unprecedented women's draw of 96 teams, Chicago hosted more players than any of the previous Championships. All matches were outstanding, with topnotch play from the early rounds on. Flip Goodspeed/Scott Mansager came out on top again in the men's play. The crowd's loudest cheers, however, were for former champion Dave Ohlmuller who returned to action after being severely injured in a hit and run[...]
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