Red Clay
It's drizzling outside. I can't sleep. I've got tennis on the brain. I'm hoping that the courts don't get too wet for me to play my league match tomorrow at 3. Greenfield has nine natural red clay tennis courts. Five at Beacon Field and four at Highland Pond. This is pretty amazing to me.
I was talking to a guy I was playing in a tournament last week. He whooped me pretty good, 6-1, 6-0. But I was telling him that I'd been playing tennis since I was a kid, but I had gone for years without playing and then took the game up again recently, and it was the clay courts at Beacon, just two blocks from our house, that got me back into playing tennis. Back in Florida, clay courts were a rare thing. The only ones I knew of were Har-Tru and were at members-only clubs. So to have municipal public clay courts -- natural red clay, no less -- seems magical.
I'm a member of the Greenfield Tennis Association, which raises funds to help maintain the courts. They have a number of tournaments to raise money. There's one this weekend that I hope to play in. I actually ended up on the winning team last year.
But what I've noticed is that natural red clay tennis courts are pretty special. In other places around the country, they have clubs built around historic clay courts. Like the Worcester Tennis Club in nearby Worcester, Mass. Or the Frick Park courts in Pittsburgh, PA. Even in Springfield, in Forest Park, across the way from the hard courts which are visible from Sumner Ave., there are clay courts behind a hedge that are reserved for members of the Springfield Tennis Club. The Holyoke Canoe Club boasts eight clay courts.
I was talking to a guy I was playing in a tournament last week. He whooped me pretty good, 6-1, 6-0. But I was telling him that I'd been playing tennis since I was a kid, but I had gone for years without playing and then took the game up again recently, and it was the clay courts at Beacon, just two blocks from our house, that got me back into playing tennis. Back in Florida, clay courts were a rare thing. The only ones I knew of were Har-Tru and were at members-only clubs. So to have municipal public clay courts -- natural red clay, no less -- seems magical.
I'm a member of the Greenfield Tennis Association, which raises funds to help maintain the courts. They have a number of tournaments to raise money. There's one this weekend that I hope to play in. I actually ended up on the winning team last year.
But what I've noticed is that natural red clay tennis courts are pretty special. In other places around the country, they have clubs built around historic clay courts. Like the Worcester Tennis Club in nearby Worcester, Mass. Or the Frick Park courts in Pittsburgh, PA. Even in Springfield, in Forest Park, across the way from the hard courts which are visible from Sumner Ave., there are clay courts behind a hedge that are reserved for members of the Springfield Tennis Club. The Holyoke Canoe Club boasts eight clay courts.