We are in a crisis, people. For decades, platform tennis players around the country have been saying, “I’ve got a paddle match tonight so I can’t celebrate our son’s 1st birthday” or “I’m going to play in a paddle tournament this weekend, so I need to rest and not do any chores.” We talked and still talk about our sport as paddle. And now, apparently, we shouldn’t. We are confusing the millions of padel players around the world and other racquet sport aficionados. So, we’re going with a name that’s ours alone: platform tennis, or just platform.
A Brief History of Our Name
When Fess Blanchard and Jimmy Cogswell created the game in the 1920s, they named it platform paddle tennis. They used paddle tennis equipment, a game invented in the very late 1800s, until platform paddle tennis gear became a little more specialized.
The APTA back then was the American Paddle Tennis Association, until it went defunct. Our APTA arranged to take over the acronym, but officially as the American Platform Tennis Association. “Paddle” came off the letterhead, though it stuck around as our nickname.
Meanwhile, the original paddle tennis has been rebranded as POP tennis, a different game on different courts that’s big on the California coast, but it still answers to paddle tennis, too.
Pronunciation Matters
Once padel, born in Mexico in the 1960s (apparently created by a former platform tennis player!), was introduced into the United States, Americans tried to give it a fancy foreign pronunciation, the way “croissant” becomes “kwah-SAHN.” Padel became “Pa Dell,” which sounds less like a racquet sport and more like a farmer. Part of that was us hanging on to “paddle,” since that name already had a home. But padel players worldwide say it “paddle,” and there are millions of them.
The Alternative(s)
So, does that mean the appellation paddle tennis is still up for grabs? Apparently not. There are so many variations of the sport, all played on small courts with few lines with underhand serves, that people are just too confused. Even using only our initials, PT, is confusing, especially since so many of our players are PTs, fixing everyone’s plantar fasciitis and calf pulls. Curses!
One of the most wonderful parts of the platform tennis community is how welcoming we are to other racquet sports. As Patty Hogan said, “Pickleball is a gateway drug for platform tennis.” We love that our top platform pros are playing padel—there is room for it all—but we know they’ll come back for the camaraderie. We compete hard but we make friends with our opponents, the crowd, and the staff at the club. Our sport is unique and so let’s keep our name unique.
In case you, too, don’t think platform tennis rolls off the tongue easily, we have considered a few rebranding ideas: Elevated Tennis, Elevated Paddle, Gritty Tennis, Outdoor Winter Tennis That We Play Year-Round, Tennis for Beer Drinkers, or PF. We passed on all of them, because we already have a shorter name: platform. As in, “I’ve got a platform match tonight so I can’t do paint and sip with the boys.”
As a historic sport, platform tennis has earned its stripes. Let’s embrace our specificity: say platform tennis, or just platform. Even if you have to say it twice to be understood. Crisis averted.
