The second-annual International Tennis Day will be on Saturday 20 June 2015. All around the world, people will be celebrating court tennis by hosting tournaments, matches, exhibitions, shootouts, crazy doubles, marathons and clinics. This is a great way to energize members and publicize the game. Courts in all four playing nations, supported by their national associations, will again be busy on ITD, as will supporters of the game in countries hoping to build courts like Ireland and the Netherlands.   

and the ITD Facebook page:

Editor's Note: Last month we wrote that Washington won the Lord Percival Cup for the second consecutive year. Thanks to two careful "Chase the First" readers it was pointed out that we were wrong on two counts! New York won the Cup last year and it's not the Lord Percival Cup it is the Percy Cup. Our sincere apologies to New York and to Mr. Percy - we stand corrected. Thank you to Arthur Whitcomb and Robert Price for the "heads up" - keep reading!

The origin of the name of the Lord Percival Cup is founded on a mistake. The 1795 Peter Van Dyke oil painting in the Reading Room of the Racquet Club of Philadelphia, entitled "The Tennis Player" was purchased by William (Sammy) Van Alen from an English antiques dealer.

Sammy hurried to the dealer's home one evening to see the painting and to buy it before his friend Lord Aberdare could buy it or have Parliament pass an act to prevent it from leaving England.  Mr. Van Alen told me that he knocked on the door and after some time the door was opened by a small boy who was naked and dripping wet.

After Sammy said that "I think that I am here to see your father."  The boy turned and said "Papa, there is someone here to see you." He then led Sammy to a warm room where the boy and his two other brothers had been in a large tub of hot, soapy water being bathed by their father.  The father stopped the bathing, and said to Sammy "Ah, you have come to see Percy, have you?"  It is the antiques dealer who named that tennis player Percy.

When the idea of what is now correctly called the Percy Cup, was being considered, it was decided to ennoble Percy with a Lordship, without the Queen's permission.  But Philadelphia has had previous acts of disrespect to George III as precedent. However, the next act of disrespect was clearly an error. It was mistakenly assumed that Percy was short for Percival, which it is not. Percy is a very aristocratic family name in England, while Percival is noted mainly as the name of the only English Prime Minister to have been assassinated.

When more Anglophile members of the Racquet Club realized the error and Mr. Van Alen's story was recalled, the Lord Percival Cup became - properly - The Percy Cup.  Lord Percival was relegated to the ranks of pretenders to aristocratic stature.

The wisdom of Mr. Van Alen's purchase has received recent confirmation.  My recollection is that he told me that it cost about $5,000 to buy, ship it to Philadelphia, frame and hang it many years ago.  Other members of the Club chipped in the reimburse him for much of that cost.  The Tennis Player now been appraised for $600,000.

The Doctor is "back" !!!

In this installment, Dr. Cohen examines "your aching back" inspired by RCOP Assistant Pro, James Asher's back spasm episode last December where it took 8 people to carry him downstairs on a stretcher (shown in the photo above).

Click here to see the Doctor.