WHICH COLOR DECK? By Charles E. Vasoll

I’ve heard about a club that put it up for a vote of it’s members when their platform tennis courts were being re-surfaced as to the colors that the playing deck should be. As it turned out the color that won was not the choice of the vendor and he convinced the Racquet Committee to go along with his choice. I don’t know the repercussions of this overturning of the members’ vote but it certainly could have started a war.

This is obviously a very personal matter among players and it should not be that way. Once again I fault the governing body of the sport, the American Platform Tennis Association (APTA), for not taking a stand on this issue. The Association makes all the rules for the sport including dimensions of the court, height of the net, size and number of holes in the racquet but did not have the foresight to mandate the color of the court. Platform Tennis is not on television in any regular manner so the color of the court cannot be dictated by that medium. Further, our sport is played almost evenly with sunlight in daytime and under artificial light at night. The color of the court must be acceptable under both these conditions.

I am not campaigning for one color over another but I do believe that there should be a limitation and a standard so that players don’t have to be accustomed to something odd, like cantaloupe, honeydew or salmon.

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