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Tennis practice target and display

Tennis practice target and display description/claims

This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application No. 60/931,908 filed on May 26, 2007.

This invention concerns tennis and more particularly targets for practicing shots on tennis courts.

It has heretofore been proposed to provide detectors for determining if a shot impacts the court within bounds by electronically detecting the point of impact of a tennis ball, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,342,042; 4,855,711; 3,982,759; 4,092,634 and 4,365,805 for example. Targets have also been devised for recording impacts when a tennis ball strikes the target; as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,908,194; 3,874,664; 6,715,760; 5,419,565 and 4,659,090.

Such tennis court targets and displays have not provided any scoring capability such that practicing using the target are not particularly entertaining and this is lack not particularly conducive to extended practice sessions, nor to engaging in competitive activity during practice with another player.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a tennis court target and display which provides a scoring scheme which provides added interest for practice sessions.

The above recited object as well as other objects which will be appreciated upon a reading of the following specification and claims are achieved by a portable target placeable anywhere on the court surface, and having multiple areas of progressively smaller size, numeric displays are also provided each giving the total number of times a given target area is impacted in a practice session. A total score numeric display is also provided based on impacted cause tallying of correspondingly different point values for each area in which the increasing size of the target area has a inverse smaller point value. The counter-display is configured so as to be readily viewable on the court by a player. The total score point numeric display provided, tallying the cumulative points scored in any turn provides a basis for engaging in a contest between two or more players during a practice session.

Thus, the practice sessions are given enhanced entertainment value and allow a game like contest such that longer and more intense practices will likely result.

FIG. 1 is a pictorial view of a tennis court having target-display arrangement installed thereon.

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic view of the target and counter-display depicting the major features.

FIG. 3 is an elevational view of the target shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 lying on a court surface.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged front view of the counter-display component shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

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