THE STORY OF POINT PLAY® TENNIS

I am so happy to be able to share the story of this amazing game with you.  This fast paced, calorie-burning, innovative new form of tennis evolved over ten years of on-court experimentation.  The idea of this awesome game, however, goes back much further and has its roots in my family’s connection to tennis.

Point Play® began years ago as a game my sister, Beth Norton, and I would play.  Beth was the number one ranked 18-and-under junior in the country in 1975 and went on to reach as high as 20th in the world on the professional tour.  I worked as a practice partner and travel companion for her. We played this game so that we were practicing all our shots in a competitive way. Back then we called it “3 Ball”.  We would start with serve and return. If we missed the first serve or return we would play a second serve. At that point, we would continue to hit a total of three more balls. The first ball was a baseline rally and we could come up to the net if we had the opportunity.  Once that ball was finished, we started a second ball. The server deliberately hit a short ball so the other person could hit an approach shot and play the point out. The third ball was either a volley or an overhead, and played out. We would loosely keep track of points to make it competitive, but it was initially designed to practice all the shots in one “point”.  We had so much fun playing this game because we were practicing all our shots yet still playing to win. The competition was fierce!

Years later after I had started my professional life as a teaching pro, I used this in my private lessons to work on an “all court game” and most everyone enjoyed practicing in this way.  In 2006 a particular student, Lasala, was taking private and group lessons with me. We would almost always play “3 Ball” (as I had continued to call it) because she practiced all her shots in a competitive way.  One night in a group lesson five people showed up mistakenly. I wasn’t sure what to do, considering most of my drills were designed for four players. Lasala casually turned to me and suggested we play “3 Ball”. The old adage is true: necessity is the mother of invention.  A light went on in my head and I thought we could play “3 Ball” as a doubles game with the pro feeding the balls, two people on one side and three on the other. I would hit to the side with three players. Whoever missed on that side would be replaced by the person waiting. A team of two would have to win three points in a row to be on the Champion’s side.  To score a point, the Champions would have to win three in a row. My students loved it! We began to play this game regularly but it was still in its infancy. I tried experimenting with different numbers but I found that the optimal number of players was four, five, six, seven or even eight people per court!

The first students to play this were Lasala, Oberst, Dibella, Wiltshire-Toth and Oshrin.  As all of this was still in an experimental stage, management decided to give away the Tuesday-Thursday night clinic times to a new pro coming in.  Suddenly, there wasn’t an opportunity for “3 Ball” to continue and evolve. I would not be teaching at night anymore. I was disappointed, but fortunately the game was about to resurface in a bigger and better way!

A couple of months went by, and a woman that I taught, Travers, approached me and asked if I could start a tennis class that included a cardio element.  I told her that I had a new game to play that was both cardio and fun. She said ok and that she’d get three other gals. I told her she’d want more than that.  She said “Really?”, worried that it wouldn’t be a very good workout. I assured her it would be QUITE the work out. She got the following women together: Travers, Fyda, Purcell, Ellman, Judd and Mitnick.  From this point on I would refer to them as the “Founding Mothers”. It was with these women and others that the rules of “3 Ball” would take shape.

As the game developed and the rules became more defined, we would jokingly refer to a new rule change as an “amendment” and name it after the person it involved.  The first amendment was the Travers Amendment: A team had to win three points in a row or hit a winner in order to win the point or for the Challengers to take the Champion’s side.  Instead of three in a row, it could be won quickly, or the Challengers could take the Champion’s side quickly by hitting a winner (a ball bouncing twice before someone else touches it).  Point scoring and the cardio element increased dramatically and to everyone’s approval!

The next amendment was the Franklin Amendment:  When it was the third ball, a team could win two points on either side if they hit a winner.  It’s the only time points can be scored on the Challenger’s side. The third ball became known as the “Cliffhanger” because of the potential for winning two points from either side* (a co-worker of mine, Milinkovic, would call the “Cliffhanger” as “Joe Norton” in honor of me inventing the game 🙂 ).

The third amendment that took some time to figure out was how the pro should feed the first and second ball to the Challenger’s side when they were at the net.  It was important that the pro’s feed of the ball would not influence the outcome of the point. The final solution came, and it was named the Matt Amendment: With the Challengers first ball, the players must start at the service line and hit a volley to anywhere on the Champion’s side to start the point.  For the second ball, the Challengers can move in but must hit their first shot past the Champion’s service line and play out the point. If the ball does not pass the line they forfeit their position at the net. Having this combination allows the pro to feed a neutral ball and requires the players to execute a specific shot before play can begin.  The third ball fed to the Challengers by the pro is a lob and should be as high as possible but must not bounce past the Challenger’s service line.

The last amendment is known as the Benanti Amendment.  It used to be that in order for the ball to have been considered “touched” by a player they had to have hit the ball with their racquet.  One day, however, Benanti got hit by the ball pretty hard and I changed the rule so that if any part of a person’s body made contact with the ball, the ball was considered “touched”, thereby saving a winner.  I told Benanti that she “took one for the team”!

Now comes the name Point Play®.  It had been called 3 Ball since the 1970s but the manager of the club, Butler, was insistent that I give him a name for this game and one day he would not let me go down to the court until I had given him something.  I looked at him for about 30 seconds and out of my mouth came “Point Play®”. He replied “perfect” and just like that the name of the game was born!

Lastly, we considered the question of who could participate in Point Play®.  What levels could/should the players be? The Donnelly Amendment addressed this.  Donnelly asked the question “Can you have a beginner’s Point Play®?” Butler and I looked at each other and said, “why not?”  The first beginner’s Point Play® included Donnelly, Fox, Abrams, Clancy, Bachner and Paraga. It was then that I realized Point Play® could be for all different levels.  Most everyone who played found that it helped them work on developing an “all court game”, as playing dictated the necessity of using all their shots they had been learning in lessons.  So, Point Play® encourages players to play the “complete game” of tennis and develop an “all court game”!

I also want to mention how much fun Point Play® became for both players and pros.  I could go on about how we managed to laugh so hard while still playing fast paced, competitive, high level cardio tennis.  There are two people I need to thank who asked that regardless of what rules I made the game must always be fun: those two people are Booth and Donnelly.  

Well, there you have it, this is how Point Play® began and developed.  There was no need or desire to keep track of the points at first, but over time more players were looking to have a more competitive nature to the game, and this is where the concept of the Point Play® League began.