Snap, Crackle, Pop, Rye Racquet

By Melanie Cane

POP Tennis has been played in several iterations since 1898. In its modern form, it’s a hybrid of paddle ball and tennis, played with paddles on a junior-size tennis court with low-compression tennis balls. National POP tennis tournaments are held at high-exposure places like Flushing Meadows, home to the US Open, and Venice Beach, California.

But until two months ago there was no such thing as a POP Tennis League. Enter Enrique Catter, Director of Tennis at Proform in Stamford, and 2017 winner of the New York Open Pro National POP Tennis mixed doubles. Catter created a POP league at Proform and rallied tennis pros at Chestnut Ridge (Brad Breakstone), Rye Racquet Club (Go and Hiromi Inagawa), and Solaris Club (Geoff Jagdfeld) to join. Mitch Kutner, President of the International Pop Tennis Association and Catter’s doubles’ partner, helped with promotions.

After eight weeks of play, the league championship was held at Rye Racquet October 20 with two teams from top-seeded Rye Racquet facing off against teams from Chestnut Ridge, the second seed. Rye Racquet’s top team, Fiona and Adam Strachan, won 6-2, 6-7, 6-0. The second team, Judith and Paul Leake, won 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.

Hiromi Inagawa described the finals as “awesome”. The matches were exciting and close against a strong Chestnut Ridge team. Rye Racquet finished the season with 11 points followed by Chestnut Ridge, which had seven in the first league championship in the world.

Rye Racquet’s top POP teams: Fiona and Adam Strachan and Judith and Paul Leake