Mount Shasta’s ever-friendly and always upbeat Will Duggan has been up to something top secret the past couple of years that he is finally ready to unveil.
After painstaking experimentation and careful trial and error in his garage workshop, Duggan has perfected a game that he hopes will sweep the racquet-sports playing world.
Duggan’s invention is called ‘Tenangle,’ a fast-paced hybrid of tennis and ping-pong that features an unusual ‘angle’ in place of a net that sends the ball ricocheting off in unexpected directions. The result is an indoor sport that allows tennis enthusiasts to maintain their hand-eye coordination during the long winter months in areas like ours which do not benefit from indoor tennis courts, while adding in the ‘angle’ variable which ramps up the pace and ‘fun’ level.
Duggan challenged this reporter to a Tenangle match this past Sunday afternoon, pitting an actual tennis pro and Guinness Book of World Records title holder who plays tennis ‘all the time’ (Duggan) against a former high school tennis player who hasn’t picked up a tennis racquet in years (the reporter). Duggan, predictably, won 6-0, 6-1.
Most noticeable about Tenangle is that the playing surface is bigger than a ping-pong table, and the paddles are more akin to racquets, with regular tennis racquet sized handles. The play is remarkably similar to wide open strokes tennis players take on a full sized court, with the blistering speed of tournament level ping-pong action.
Duggan, a self-described lifelong student of the game of tennis and former world-ranked player, entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the first time in 1988 for the world’s longest tennis rally. He and his playing partner Ron Kapp hit a single ball over the net 6,202 with no breaks nor errors over 3 hours and 32 minutes. In 1997, the pair reclaimed their world record, hitting a ball back and forth 15,464 times over 9 hours and 15 minutes.
Duggan came to tennis later in life than most athletes with ‘the stuff’ to go pro: he began to play tennis seriously at age 19. Over the next three years he poured his heart and soul into the game, so quickly picking it up and ascending the professional ranks that he managed to beat Peter McNamara in doubles just a year before McNamara went on to win Wimbledon. Such legendary players as Stan Ellis and Barbara Bright Gordon took Duggan under their wings, and Duggan was set to play professionally in Europe.
But everything turned on a proverbial dime when a stranger ran a red light, slammed into Duggan’s car, sent him through the windshield, and left him fighting for his life. Duggan’s injuries forced him to give up his tennis pro dream at the age of 22.
But for anyone who knows Duggan, what came next is no surprise: Duggan licked his wounds and found himself a new tennis dream, this time coaching. The ensuing decades have seen Duggan encourage and mentor tennis players of all skill levels; in recent years he’s been teaching tennis at the Mount Shasta Resort.
One of the challenges that Duggan has faced in his love for tennis in the south county is the weather.
“Two and a half years ago, I was hitting against a wall,” Duggan explained between Tenangle sets on Sunday. “Winter was coming on. I said to myself, ‘There’s got to be a way to keep the flame lit until spring.’ Relighting the flame every spring is tough; it’s tough for high school players.” He began experimenting with a folding table, eventually developing the ‘angle’ shot deflector to replace the ping-pong net which often caught the ball and needlessly slowed down the speed of the game.
“The great thing about Tenangle is that it keeps your visual acuity sharp. Overall, it keeps you in the game and you can really see the court and appreciate the angles,” Duggan explained of his invention. “It condenses and intensifies the game... This could get people interested in a small indoor facility, a multipurpose facility for the winter months.”
Duggan has a patent pending on Tenangle, but after years of perfecting the playing surface, the ball, and the racquets, he’s also ready to ‘go live’ with his addictive game. And having played it, this reporter for one is ready for a re-match. As long as Duggan plays with his good hand tied behind his back.
Mount Shasta, Calif. —
