Road Tennis revisited

Back after hurricane Wilma hit, paddleball-addict me and my kid were "jonesin'" for something to play during those long days without power. Requirements- easy to learn to play, playable with sports equipment we already had and no special location required to set up a court and play.

In my browsing, I'd run into a reference to "American Road Tennis," a slightly modified version of a sport played in the Bahamas. I already had the above linked article with the rules and court dimensions downloaded onto my laptop and so I consulted the article,  broke out a tape measure and chalk and layed out the lines. Instead of making it out to any courts, playing our newly-found game was a good, fun option. Scoring's like ping-pong; we used our lighter paddles and tennis balls and spent literally hours in front of our place playing our game.

Just recently, one of our neighbors remembered us playing the game and asked to play it again. I was for it- but rather than lay out and chalk in the lines as we did the first time, I broke out the tape measure, masking tape and spray paint and bombed down the lines, this time adding a 2 foot line on either side of the center-line as a "short" line to cut down on "kill serves." We layed the court out perpendicular to the road so as to not have to chase balls down the street. We were then constrained by the width of the street so accordingly and as a result, court dimensions are 2 feet shorter and narrower than "regulation." Using our old (and broken )Neo "Hollywood Beach" model paddles we played a couple of games on our new court and had a blast. This is a game more of touch than of power so the light Neo's, even though cracked, were perfect for this. Play continued into evening, using the street lights as illumination. My old eyes could not quite see that yella ball well enough but the young'uns were hangin'! You can be sure we'll be out there again and again now that we have a semi-permanent Road Tennis court on Madison Street.

Below are thumbnails of us laying out and spray-bombing the courts lines. Click the thumbnail to view the full-size picture, hit your keyboard's backspace key or your browser's "back" button to return to this page.