Manursing Island Club will host a Centennial Classic Paddle Tennis Tournament, Saturday, March 3, one of a number of special events celebrating the club’s centennial year.  

Manursing Island Club will host a Centennial Classic Paddle Tennis Tournament, Saturday, March 3, one of a number of special events celebrating the club’s centennial year. 

Men’s and women’s teams from Fox Meadow, Manursing, and the Field Club of Greenwich — the three founding clubs — will compete, and a pro exhibition will be held that afternoon. Early rounds will take place at all three clubs, with the semis and finals of each draw to be played at Manursing in the afternoon.

The game of paddle tennis was invented by two Scarsdale residents, Fessenden Blanchard and James Cogswell, who built a court in Cogswell’s backyard in 1928. The sport started to grow as a cold-weather substitute for tennis when the Fox Meadow Club in Scarsdale erected a court in 1931. Soon after, paddle was enthusiastically adopted in Rye at Manursing Island Club, where two portable courts were installed in 1933 on top of the poolside tennis courts.

In 1934 the American Paddle (now Platform) Tennis Association was formed by members of Manursing, Fox Meadow, and the Field Club of Greenwich.