Occasionally a racquet style will come up for sale which perplexes both buyer and seller.  These racquets are the same length as a standard racquet, much the same width but have a narrower frame and lighter weight.  They’re not squash racquets either because the shaft is not as slim.

The answer is these racquets belong to another form of tennis usually played in Asia, called SOFT TENNIS.

It was introduced by a western missionary in Japan in the late 1800’s and given the history, Soft Tennis has become the choice version of tennis for about 40% of tennis players in Japan. It is also becoming increasingly popular in other areas of the world. A slowed down and more strategic version of the standard tennis game, Soft Tennis emphasizes longer rallies and a more exciting performance that is accessible to every age and ability level right from the very first serve.

The key to Soft Tennis is the use of an inflatable soft, rubber ball. Unlike the standard felt-covered version, the pressure can be adjusted. Players can speed up or slow down the game to suit their ability and training objectives. Its composition also makes it more difficult to generate as much force when hitting the ball. This keeps the ball on the court. The result is longer rallies and a focus on cardiovascular fitness, hand-eye coordination, ball placement and footwork.

The racquets are made by many Asian based makers and we have not seen any examples produced by local companies.

This is the YONEX TS 7000 and the thinner frame is evident. Weight is about 10oz.

A google search will find additional information.

Recently when searching Ebay an unusual looking racquet came up for sale in England. Our good mate in the USA, Rolf Jaeger decided to buy it as part of his second tennis collection, having sold his first to Tennis Australia.  Neither of us had seen this before, but after some quizzing of his UK mate we found the racquet belonged to game played indoors on horse back, a winter polo variation if you will, with the extremely fanciful name “Aviation Pushball”.  The game involved a feather light, air filled ball which could be guided and hit from player to player to score a goal.

Aviation Pushball in action and the racquet right with a very intriguing stringing technique.

Within the Australian newspapers, we found at the same time a new game invented in England in the early 1900’s mainly for women, where in a type of cricket/tennis variation you hit/bowled the ball with a racquet to a batsman with racquet, to fielders with racquets where the ball could be caught using the strings. This game was called VIGORO and amazingly the game survived into the 1930’s when, as with lawn tennis, boxed sets were sold and even more surprising is the existence of Vigoro associations in NSW and Qld today. The racquets have been replaced by bats but it is great to see how other games evolve and survive.  See more at the NSW website www.vigoro.com.au

Finally, and thanks to our UK contributor, we find reference to another racquet sport called “BAGBALL” which it would appear did not survive the journey.

So great fun learning about these marvellous developments.

Vigoro in play c1903 & sets sold in 1930…still going strong today.

Bagball looks like points scored for accurate driving or volleying.

Under unusual racquets there are a couple of early metal racquets shown which made it to Australia.

One is the US made Dayton, which commenced in 1922 and closed down after a magnificent span in 1995. The other was the 1924 UK Birmal Aluminium Racquet.

Both were sold in Australia.

Dayton was imported very early in the piece via Gerald Patterson who was one of Australia’s top players at the time having won Wimbledon in 1919 and 1922.

These racquets, as you can read were strung with Piano wire and ideally suited to all weather conditions.  They were also strung with gut if desired.

The colourful frames are great for collectors, but the trick is to learn about how to tell which models are older than the others. According to expert Randy Crow from the US Tennis Collectors Society,  if the butt cap has Dayton Ohio it will be 1922-1934,  if “Arcanum O” then 1934-1975 and if three stylised racquets appear on the throat then post 1975.

Gerald Patterson went onto become the MD of Spalding in Australia and also used these Daytons in tournament play, one of the top players to do so.  In 1928, on an international visit Jean Brugnon was introduced to these during some wet weather play at Royal South Yarra by Pat O’Hara Wood.

The racquets were not that popular amongst the top class players but did prove to be appreciated by schools.

The picture below from 1923 shows Patterson the right playing with his new racquet. The fact he lost what was meant to be a win, perhaps did not help the cause.

The Birmal racquet, was aluminium and also strung with piano wire. The grips however were not grooved wood handles like the Dayton but appeared with a wrapped cord grip and later on with a leather grip.

These were promoted most heavily in tropical Queensland and the Northern Territory.

These ads and PR from Australasian Lawn Tennis 1924

An Australian tennis enthusiast, named Edward Both invented the electronic tennis scoreboard around 1952.  He and brother Don designed and tested the unit in South Australia before its’ launch at the 1952 NSW championships.  The new technology took off and BOTH EQUIPMENT Pty Ltd became the supplier of these scoreboards to other venues including trotting, basketball and horseracing.  The technology with 9000 globes was used for the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956.

Not only were Edward and Don good players but they inherited their interest from R.V.Thomas (their Uncle) who won Wimbledon Doubles with Pat O’Hara Wood in 1919 and the Australian doubles in 1919 & 1920.

Now the scoreboard invention was no fluke, because Edward Both had also designed the World renowned, life saving IRON LUNG.

It took two people to operate, one for the games and the other for points. Looks like a great match between best mates and rivals here!

Just in need for a bit of exercise we went for a bike ride today down to St Kilda Rd and Queens Rd in Albert Park, to a location which will hopefully remain a truly sacred site to the Australian Tennis Community nationally.

Down here in Melbourne, the MCC (Melbourne Cricket Club) were the driving force behind the early growth in tennis and the formation of local club competitions  in the late 1870’s. As with cricket, interstate tennis competitions also commenced and in 1892, despite having club courts at the MCG, it was decided to move the Intercolonial Matches to the Warehouseman’s Ground.  Today it is known as the Albert Ground.

The grounds, courts and clubhouse have been well maintained. The courts are no longer grass but the same surface as that now laid at the Melbourne Tennis Centre to enable tournament players some additional facilities to practice on.

In between, the courts are available for hire.

Bot not only were the Interstate tournaments played here, so were the Victorian Championships and eventually the first Australian Men’s Championships in 1905.  Lastly, and at the top of the list, these are the courts on which the very first Davis Cup, was played in 1908 (away from UK & USA), due to Australasia’s win in England in 1907. Here Norman Brookes, who lived just down the road and New Zealander, Anthony Wilding successfully defended the cup which the following year would be played in Sydney. The location was selected in Victoria as an honour to the new Australian tennis hero, Norman Brookes who had also won Wimbledon in 1907.

The clubhouse, with the exception of a new entrance room,  is almost as it was in the early 1900’s so we hope that the administrators continue to value this little corner at least to the point where it is protected from the property developers forever.

The photo was taken almost exactly where the forehand court would have been. Scaffolding surrounded the Davis Cup Court to accommodate the large number of keen spectators in 1908.  All along St Kilda and Queens Roads were stately mansions like this which have slowly been overun by the multi storey apartment and office complexes.  Thankfully some of these have been saved. Norman Brookes house is now a block of 1950’s style flats.

This photo was copied from the 1953 Davis Cup Challenge Round program as used in a Melbourne Sports Depot Ad. As you can see, the clubhouse is little changed.

Here is another shot as well. Note the manisons in the background and the cricket ground also exists today.

This seems to be a question often raised around tables, at least when the veterans are sipping on a cup of tea (nee Bundy, Jack Daniels, Beer).

In an article, in USA Tennis Magazine March 1997, written by Tennis Authority Alan Trengove, Mark Phillippousis was given the task of testing out woodies versus a standard graphite (his own) and a superlong.  The reason the article was written was because the ITF had just banned the SuperLong’s being marketed by both Dunlop and Gamma. This meant that all professional racquets had to be under 29″ in length.  I recently saw a Gamma 32″ and it really is a massive racquet with a 137″ head size. See the pic below compared to a standard woodie.  To meet the new rules they just chopped the length back to 28″.

Anyway back to the test. All the racquets were strung by Mark’s personal stringer using the strings and tensions he was used to and grips were adjusted as well.  They were the Dunlop Superlong 29 1/2″, his standard 27″ Dunlop and the recently voted number one racquet of significance over the past 50 years, the wonderful Dunlop Maxply Fort specially flown over from the UK.

The test was conducted at the Melbourne Park, home of the Australian Open.

The results were very interesting.  Wood Ave Speed 122mph, Top Speed 124mph and accuracy 60%.  Standard length 124mph, 127mph, 52% and Superlong 126mph, 127mph, 80%.

On speed it is surprising that only 3 mph separates the woodie from the two hi tech racquets and the woodie even gave Mark some more accuracy over his standard racquet.  Maybe Bjorn should have persisted with his woodie in his infamous come back!!! Then maybe Mark should have tried a Woodie more often!!

In a separate, similar test in the USA, four players confirmed these results but found the woodies accuracy levels very low.  I guess this does highlight the impact of frame strength and sweet spot size.  However, given that these 4 hadn’t played with a Woodie at all or for many years, it also highlights how stroke techniques have changed with racquets.  The importance of hitting with woodies using a more flat stroke and good follow through is certainly not in vogue today as follow throughs are moving across the body or at seems in full circle watching the almost table tennis style forehands seen today.

Were the players of old serving at Speeds like Mark? There may have been some big guns back then, but the rules for foot faulting didn’t allow both feet to be off the ground and over the line, so the level of forward momentum couldn’t have been the same.

The other factor was championship play was continuous so there were no sit down breaks between end changes because there were no chairs and no tie breaks which meant a match could easily go 3-4 hours.  The wise players of the day relied more on accurate first serves with more twist than pace as way of conserving energy.

The conclusion of the test was that while extra longs seem to assist with accuracy, the additional size, weight and therefore swing speed didn’t create the massive increase in serve speed the ITF were worried about preventing.  It is also proves that you really can generate some service speed using an old woodie afterall and suprisingly not that much slower than today’s technologically advanced racquets.