USTA Florida

Mardy Fish Tennis Courts Dedicated In Riverside Park Ceremony

Randy Walker · January 14, 2024 · Leave a Comment

The eastern tennis courts at Riverside Park, where Mardy Fish first learned to play the sport that launched him to international tennis glory, are now officially recognized as the Mardy Fish Tennis Courts.

The Florida section of the United States Tennis Association officially dedicated the courts in a first-class Sunday morning ceremony attended by Fish, his mother Sally and father Tom, Vero Beach Mayor John Cotugo, Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Lynn Southerly as well as friends and many of Vero Beach’s tennis enthusiasts.

The ceremony, that was hosted by former USTA Florida President Dana Andrews, can be seen in its entirety here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RnREuPExqA

The Mardy Fish Court – A Timeline Of How It Came To Be

Randy Walker · January 11, 2024 · Leave a Comment

by Randy Walker

@TennisPublisher

In early 2019, Rob Slezak, then the Recreation Director for the City of Vero Beach, Florida, reached out to Tom Fish to see if he could help with fundraising ideas to help spruce up the city’s public tennis courts at Riverside Park. The facility was growing tired and was losing money for the city and Slezak wanted to brain storm and discuss possible solutions with Fish, the father of Vero Beach’s own tennis star Mardy Fish and himself a leading tennis voice in Vero Beach as a 40-year teaching pro in town.

Fish asked me, as his fellow tournament director for the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation Tennis Championships USTA Pro Circuit event in Vero Beach, to come along to meet with Slezak at Riverside Park that morning for the brainstorm and to walk around the 10-court facility to see what specific upgrades needed to done. As we walked over to the group of four courts on the far east part of the footprint, we stopped at the court that stands in the far northeast corner. Fish then looked over a Slezak and I said “Do you know how many tennis balls I hit with Mardy on this court?” Fish and his wife Sally used to live just across the street from the courts on Honeysuckle Lane and after teaching tennis for his day job, Fish would then take a young Mardy – and an even younger daughter Meredith Fish – and hit balls with them in his spare time. It was the court where Mardy first started to learn to play tennis and where he went on to an amazing pro tennis career that brought him around the world to Centre Court at Wimbledon and Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.

The significance of this did not pass me by and I immediately shouted out “This has to be ‘The Mardy Fish Court.’ We need to have a plaque here or something.” Said Tom Fish in 2022 in an interview with me as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0BIDbPuaww of the days teaching tennis to young Mardy and Meredith, “I would teach tennis basically all day and then come home at night and hit tennis balls with Mardy and Meredith. We didn’t have any illusions of grandeur that Mardy has accomplished and actually Meredith accomplished too. We were just hoping to get some exercise, hang out with each other, and learn some tennis. Our biggest dream was maybe get a college scholarship. (which Meredith did at Florida State.)”

I’ve always been not only a tennis history buff but a history buff in general and have always found it fascinating when discovering historic sites that are commemorated, like the exact spot where historical events have happened, whether it was a place where George Washington slept or a place where a battle was or where someone famous once lived. In New York City, where I also live, it seems that on almost every street there is a commemoration of where some famous person lived, like Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant or Andy Warhol.

These kind of markers are also present here and there in tennis. There is a plaque commemorating where the first edition of the modern-day U.S. Open took place in 1881 at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. When I worked at the U.S. Tennis Association, we implemented a program where a plaque was placed at every site in the United States that hosted a U.S. Davis Cup match. On a trip years ago driving from New York to Vero Beach, I stopped in Lynchburg, Virginia to a site that was just recently commemorated as the place where Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe trained with Dr. Robert Johnson as you can see on YouTube here:

At my alma mater, the University of Georgia named its center court in Henry Field Stadium “The Mikael Pernfors Center Court” in honor of the greatest Georgia tennis player who won two NCAA singles titles on that very court (A court I too had the privilege of also playing an official match on for the Georgia Bulldogs.)

Why couldn’t something similar be done in Vero Beach to commemorate the spot where Mardy Fish learned to play? While Mardy was not a world No. 1 or Grand Slam tournament champion, he did win the silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games, was a stalwart on the U.S. Davis Cup team and was a top 10 player. While he wasn’t an International Tennis Hall of Famer, he was a Hall of Famer in Vero Beach circles. He might be the most well-known and accomplished athlete to come out of Vero Beach.

While having your name on a court is certainly about honoring someone for their achievements, as Mardy deserves in the context of his hometown, it can also serve as an inspiration to others. If a young kid can play tennis on the very same court where another Vero Beach kid learned to play the sport that brought him or her success around the world in international tennis, couldn’t that kid also believe that they could do it as well? Or at least they can aspire to play on a high school team, play national tournaments or college tennis or perhaps even some pro tennis. And all the while, learning life skills through tennis like independence, self-reliance and while learning a healthy form of exercise that would keep them healthy throughout their lifetime.

Having a plaque for a “Mardy Fish Court” would also, in a way, becomes a bit of a tourist attraction, at least for tennis fans. And it can be used to lure more attention to the Riverside Park community. One of my first discussions of the possibility of a Mardy Fish Court in public was in this video from 2019, shortly after the meeting with Slezak and Tom Fish, when I conducted a video tour of the Riverside Park tennis courts here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErykLkpldJ0 to showcase the facility to those who were not in Vero Beach.

One of the efforts that came out of the meeting with Slezak was to put together a plan to refurbish the courts at Riverside Park with a fundraising effort, perhaps with sponsorship or a “brick naming” program to raise money. One of the great programs that the U.S. Tennis Association has, as I learned from my 13-year career working there, is not only the offering of facility grants to help refurbish public tennis facilities, but also a facility design program. Soon, I was working with Todd Carlson with the USTA on putting together a potential facility refurbishment design but also a profit-and-loss document with potential expanded programming so it could be determined just how much money needed to be raised. The project was going to be championed by the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, Mardy and the Fish family’s non-profit foundation that helps at risk children in Vero Beach. The project was dubbed “The Riverside Dream” by Treasure Coast Tennis Association head Tim Palmer, the local “Johnny Appleseed” for youth tennis in Vero Beach, who, after visiting the amazing public tennis facility in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida wondered why a similar facility couldn’t be created in Vero Beach, which is an equal or even better tennis town than Palm Beach Gardens. The central part of this design, which was emphasized to Carlson, would be that the very court where Mardy first started hitting tennis balls would be a “Mardy Fish Court” or even a mini stadium – albeit it would only be a court surrounded by a few rows of seating and nothing like an Arthur Ashe Stadium or Rod Laver Arena.

The final designs for the facility came from the USTA in January of 2020 and only a few weeks later, the world went still with the global COVID pandemic. The project was put on hold for obvious reasons and the city and the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation did not even make any of the details or designs public. The climate and pulse of the country and the community was not conducive for this kind of fundraising at the time with the world facing many bigger problems.

While playing socially-distant tennis at Riverside Park during the summer and autumn months of 2020 and into 2021, Tim Palmer and I would always make sure that we played on “The Mardy Fish Court” and always referring to it as such, including the first day when I returned to playing tennis during COVID, as I documented in video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QPdd7ps5K0

When I played tennis at Riverside, I would always try to play on the “Mardy Fish Court” and tried to promote it as much as possible on social media.

On St. Patrick’s Day in 2021, I posted another plug for the “Mardy Fish Court” on Facebook with the hint that fundraising would soon start. This was done to make the initial move to start to get word out about potential plans for the court as the “Mardy Fish Court” came under threat by….pickleball.

Two separate groups were attempting to convince the City of Vero Beach to transform the four eastern court on the property – including “The Mardy Fish Court” – into pickleball courts. Transforming four of the 10 tennis courts at Riverside Park to pickleball would be a major blow for tennis in Vero Beach and would threaten the tennis programming that the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation was conducting at Riverside Park. Lynn Southerly, the executive director of the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation, as well as Tim Palmer and myself and others all went on an offensive to save Riverside Park from pickleball and keep the “Riverside Dream” alive, including the Mardy Fish Court. We decided that it would be a good idea to go public with the Riverside Park tennis design plans – that sat dormant in an email inbox for well over a year as the economy and investment climate improved as the pandemic conditions began to slowly improve. It was the lead story written by former New York Post sports writer Ray McNulty on April 1, 2021 in the influential Vero Beach weekly newspaper “32963” as you can read here https://veronews.com/2021/04/01/expansion-proposed-for-riverside-park-tennis-complex/#.YG3UGJ856tY.twitter I also posted a story on my TennisGrandstand.com tennis website here: https://tennisgrandstand.com/2021/04/11/u-s-davis-cup-captain-olympic-silver-medalist-mardy-fish-may-have-a-court-named-after-him-in-hometown-of-vero-beach-florida/

One of the arguments that the pickleball organizers had in favor of taking over tennis courts at Riverside Park was limited play and programming on the courts. This was largely due to their not being a director of tennis at the facility who was organizing and pro-actively promoting play at the facility. Pickleball was organized. Tennis was not.

I tried to think of people who could maybe put their hat in to be a tennis director at Riverside Park. I spoke with Carlos Goffi, the former coach of John and Patrick McEnroe who recently ran the tennis at Disney Wide World of Sports in Orlando and who I helped with his “Tournament Tough” book in the past. I also spoke with former Florida junior tennis standout Brian Rosenthal, who has a business that runs tennis operations at public facilities, as well other teaching pros I knew. However, there was no guaranteed salary with a job. It would be 100 percent entrepreneurial. It would not be an easy sell.

I then remembered that the USTA Florida section has a program where their office actually takes over and runs as the primary vendor for some public tennis facilities in Florida. The USTA could certainly take a financial risk and they know tennis better than anyone. The USTA’s mission is to promote and develop the growth of tennis so even if they break even or even lose a little money, it is money invested into their mission.

I emailed Laura Bowen, the USTA Florida section executive director about the pickleball dilemma at Riverside Park tennis and she agreed to meet me and pay a visit to the tennis courts. I made sure that I showed her “The Mardy Fish Court” and posted a photo on the TennisVeroBeach Twitter page (now out of service) of two of us on said court on June 11, 2021.

Shortly thereafter, the Vero Beach City Council officially rejected the idea of pickleball at Riverside Park and Bowen and USTA Florida began their effort to work to take over the operation of Riverside Tennis. There was some initial community reluctances based on unknowns, false information and rumors. However, the Riverside Park tennis facility needed more attention and care as I documented in many videos that I compiled here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UkVNfoVkUg&t=100s

Other promotional videos I created in support of USTA Florida’s efforts can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UkVNfoVkUg and, one including an endorsement from Mardy himself, here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2td0Ah8mgY and an interview with a former Riverside Tennis Director Ted MacBeth here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb9Bd8C02gA

Bowen spearheaded an excellent community outreach program that included community discussion sessions and a question and answer document, as seen here: https://tennisverobeach.com/index.php/2022/03/19/usta-florida-head-laura-bowen-discusses-potential-riverside-park-tennis-partnership-for-vero-beach/ to fully educate the public and the Vero Beach City Council. In February of 2023, the Vero Beach City Council voted to approve the USTA Florida’s proposal as you can read here:: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/indian-river-county/2023/02/28/vero-beach-enters-contract-with-usta-over-riverside-tennis-complex/69936335007/ With the USTA in control of Riverside Tennis – and with the financial resources to renovate and upgrade the facility – the “Riverside Dream” is alive and “The Mardy Fish Court” becomes a reality, albeit not a mini-stadium as was first thrown out as a possibility, but a court still named for Vero Beach’s favorite tennis playing son that will surely inspire many generations of Vero Beach tennis players.

USTA Florida To Take Over Management Of Riverside Park Tennis Facility

manfr3dw · February 27, 2023 · Leave a Comment

USTA Florida has expanded its facility management division, as the Vero Beach City Council voted unanimously to enter into a licensing agreement with the non-profit tennis association to manage Riverside Racquet Complex. This will be the fourth USTA Florida-managed facility, joining Racquet Club of Cocoa Beach, Fort Walton Beach Tennis Center, and four tennis parks in Gainesville, that currently operate under the non-profit’s banner.

“We got into this business five years ago to help save public tennis centers that were at risk of closing or struggling to keep players. Today, tennis is booming, and we are expanding our business to help municipalities deliver the best possible tennis experience and programs to their communities,” said Phil Girardi, USTA Florida President.

According to Girardi, Riverside is a perfect fit for USTA Florida to manage. The city itself is home to a number of very active tennis volunteers, including USTA Florida Past President Nancy Morgan and current USTA Florida Board member Kainoa Rosa. Riverside also has a vibrant community tennis association, led by Tim Palmer, who works tirelessly to advocate and deliver tennis programs at the park.

“The partnerships that are already present in this community are truly special. They provide a strong foundation for growth,” said Girardi.

City officials shared a similar desire to expand programs and play at the facility, while keeping existing programs that residents have come to expect.

“We have been working with the USTA-FL for over a year to get this agreement in place. They have a proven track record of working with other municipalities around the state, and we are thrilled to have them as our partner. USTA-FL will have the ability to bring new and improved programming to Riverside, particularly to our city’s youth, while maintaining the offerings our members and patrons currently enjoy. We feel that this partnership will be a win for our residents, and a major boost to tennis in Vero Beach,” shared Jim O’Connell, Director of the Vero Beach Recreation Department.

Since USTA Florida took on its first facility in 2018, tennis participation in the state of Florida has grown by nearly half a million players. The latest tennis participation study shows that more than 100,000 additional Floridians want to start playing tennis, if given the chance. USTA Florida Past President, Dana Andrews, says Vero Beach is positioned well to serve both the existing members and reach new players.

“I have truly enjoyed working with the volunteers and the city representative throughout this process. When I first stepped foot in this park, I knew exactly why the residents love it. If there was a postcard for Florida tennis, this place would be on the front,” Andrews said. “We want everyone in the community to play here – tennis is the sport of a lifetime.”

Riverside Racquet Complex holds a special place in Florida tennis history. American champion Mardy Fish grew up playing tennis with his dad, Tom, on the Riverside courts, just across the street from his home.

“As a tennis-playing Vero Beach resident for over 40 years, I am thrilled that USTA Florida will be taking over the management of the Riverside Park public tennis courts, because no organization knows tennis better than the USTA. Tennis is the ultimate family sport that can be enjoyed together, and Riverside Park is the place where I enjoyed playing the most with my family. It’s where my two children, Mardy and Meredith, first learned to love the game. I know USTA Florida will bring excitement back to the Riverside Park courts to the benefit of all in our community who play tennis or wish to learn,” said Tom Fish.

“My early dreams in tennis began at Riverside Park in Vero Beach and it led me down the road to be able to compete on Arthur Ashe Stadium, Centre Court at Wimbledon and many other wonderful places around the world and I hope that more players can start to realize their own dreams on those very same courts,” said Mardy Fish. “Me and my pals Robert Kowalcyck and Jake Owen and his brother Jarrod and all of our families spent so much time playing tennis at Riverside Park years ago and I know that the USTA Florida will do an amazing job to bring that excitement, joy and energy back and to even greater heights.”

The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation is eager to expand youth play at the Riverside courts to bring back the high level of programming that the Fish family enjoyed decades ago.

“So many more people in our community – kids and adults – will have the opportunity to be introduced to the game of tennis under the management of the USTA Florida, a world-class organization.  The tennis facility will finally be brought up to standards that match the beauty of the rest of the Riverside Park area.  This will all be done at a savings to our tax paying citizens.   We could not have asked for a better win-win situation,” said Lynn Southerly, executive director of the Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation.    

As part of the agreement with the city, USTA Florida will resurface the four remaining tennis courts at Riverside this Spring. The association plans to recruit a full-time head tennis professional and other staff in the coming weeks. The goal is for the facility to be fully managed by USTA Florida in June.

For more information on USTA Florida’s mission and to learn more about its facility management services, visit USTAFlorida.com.

USTA Florida Head Laura Bowen Discusses Potential Riverside Park Tennis Partnership For Vero Beach

Randy Walker · March 19, 2022 · 1 Comment

Laura Bowen, the executive director of the USTA Florida section, participates in a question and answer session to discuss the situation with regard to USTA Florida potentially taking over the management of the tennis facility at Riverside Park in Vero Beach.

Tell us a bit about the USTA Florida Facility Management Program?

LAURA BOWEN: Our Board of Directors started looking at tennis management services in early 2017. Several of our Board members have spent decades managing public tennis centers in Florida. Unfortunately, budget pressures on cities had led some municipalities in the state to consider eliminating tennis courts when they are not being used. Several public parks had reached out to us over the years and asked if USTA Florida would help manage their public tennis facilities. We decided to get into the management business to help prevent facilities from closing AND to learn more about why public tennis centers were struggling to bring in new players.

It’s important to share that, although direct management is something we can offer, it’s not all that we do, and not all facilities are a fit for us. More often than not, we provide different levels of advice and guidance to cities who request it. This can be as simple as answering questions about clay court maintenance or getting bids on projects and as complicated as a full facility evaluation and transformation. We will provide guidance and professional assessments to any city that requests it – for free.

What communities are currently part of this program and how has it been received?

LAURA BOWEN: Our first location was Racquet Club of Cocoa Beach, which we started managing in December of 2017. We added Fort Walton Beach Tennis Center and the city-owned courts in Gainesville in 2019. In all three instances, we met with the community before we took on the location to listen to what the residents and players wanted. We then tailored our programs and services around their needs. In all three cases, programs have expanded, revenues have increased, and we now have strong relationships with the communities.

It’s common for residents to view USTA Florida as an outsider who is coming in to change everything. It’s also common for people to view USTA Florida as just leagues and tournaments. In reality, we are an organization of volunteers, staff and players who play and deliver tennis all over the state. We see ourselves as a community partner that is willing to take our resources and expertise and apply them to bring more tennis play opportunities to the community. We understand that it takes a little bit of a leap of faith on both sides to go into a partnership, but the outcome has universally been positive.

What is USTA Florida paid by communities to run this management program? How do the financials work?

LAURA BOWEN: We are a 501c4 not-for-profit organization. When we take on a facility, we are not interested in making money. Same goes for our programs. We exist to grow the game of tennis. We are willing to absorb extra costs of programs in order to get more people playing tennis locally.

Our goals with tennis management are first and foremost to keep tennis courts from being eliminated due to lack of use, and second, to provide as many tennis programs and play opportunities to the community as possible. We are not paid anything from the cities for our services. Quite the opposite. To date, we have invested more than $2 million in the three facilities we manage. Every dime we have collected in revenue has gone into programs, play and facility improvements. When/if the facility is profitable, we put that money back into the facility. We also provide clear and transparent financial reports to our city partners. The city sees exactly what we spend and what we bring in.

People in Vero Beach are worried that if the USTA Florida comes in to manage its Riverside Park public courts that fees will be increased. Will they?

LAURA BOWEN: Let me start by stating clearly that USTA Florida has not presented any contract for management services to the city. We have provided an assessment of the current services and our recommendations for growth, which I personally promised to the Recreation Commission at its February meeting.

We have been asked questions and have provided information on the types of contracts we normally do. That doesn’t mean we would do the same thing in a contract with the City of Vero Beach. Every situation is different. We made a decision not to enter contract negotiations with the City of Vero Beach without the council and community supporting those efforts.

Reports that we approached the city initially to “take over” the facility are also inaccurate. I personally received a request from tennis advocates in the summer of 2021 to come to Vero and discuss the possibility of managing the location. This request came immediately after a separate group offered to convert four of the courts to pickleball and manage those courts under a proposed agreement with the city.

We have recommended in our assessment that the daily court fees be reduced. The current drop-in rates are high compared to other public tennis facilities in the State of Florida. The membership rates are also out of line with best practices in the state of Florida. Some are low and some are reasonable, but they do not align. Again, we explain this in our assessment. Ultimately, the city council determines the fees at the tennis center, not USTA Florida.

Another concern is that people who have their normal everyday morning games will now have their court time taken away. Could this happen?

LAURA BOWEN: No. We want to expand programs, not replace them. Morning round-robin play seems to be vibrant and should continue.

Will there still be free court time offered at Riverside Park if the USTA Florida takes over its management?

LAURA BOWEN: We offer free court time at all of our facilities for various reasons. This is a common practice.

What will happen to the current staff at Riverside Park Tennis if the USTA Florida comes in?

LAURA BOWEN: The current staff are employees of the City of Vero Beach. That is a question for the city. We do not comment on what another entity should do with its employees.

USTA Florida is an equal opportunity employer. We create jobs based on needs at each location and grade them appropriately. All of our job openings are posted publicly on Indeed and they include pay rates. We also have an independent compensation consultant that audits all positions and pay to ensure equity and fairness.

We have not created any job descriptions for Riverside. That would only occur if we entered into a contract negotiation. As mentioned previously, we are not at that point.

What happens to the freelance tennis pros who currently teach at Riverside Park?

LAURA BOWEN: Tennis professionals who have a contract with the city would need to discuss their contract terms with the city. We have provided recommendations in our assessment regarding best practices that many cities apply in their contracts with tennis professionals who teach on city-owned courts. The City of Vero Beach is welcome to follow those recommendations or not.

USTA Florida directly employs all of our teaching professionals. We do this for a variety of reasons, mainly to ensure all teaching professionals are certified, trained, Safe Play approved, and background checked. We provide all training and professional development and support for those employees at our cost.

Will the USTA have a tennis pro shop at Riverside Park that could potentially compete with other tennis stores in Vero Beach?

LAURA BOWEN: We have not assessed this portion of the existing operation, but the building appears too small for an operation that would compete with a local tennis shop. The typical things we offer at our other locations are balls and stringing services. We do not typically offer merchandise in the way that a private club or local tennis shop does.

Will the USTA still allow St. Edwards to have its varsity, junior varsity and middle school tennis matches and programming at Riverside Park?

LAURA BOWEN: Yes. We do this at our other locations. It’s usually written into our contracts with the cities.

What kind of programs would you be implementing that locals can perhaps participate in and look forward to?

LAURA BOWEN: As noted in our assessment, youth programs seem to be a missing piece. We first visited Riverside in August of 2021 and asked if there were weekly summer camps being provided. We were told there were not. That is a big entry point for kids of all ages. It’s also important for any tennis center to have regular after-school programs for youth of all ages. Those generally happen from 3-6pm. Adaptive (Special Olympics), wheelchair tennis, and adult beginner programs are also areas of opportunity that we are seeing thrive at other public tennis centers.

Would local residents have to join the USTA to play at the courts? To play in clinics or play in tournaments or round-robins or leagues?

LAURA BOWEN: No. You are only required to be a USTA member to play in USTA Adult Leagues and Sanctioned Tournaments. USTA Membership requirements and pricing is set by the USTA (national) board.

What kind of facility upgrades would the USTA Florida implement and who would pay for it? New nets? Windscreens? Court resurfacing?

LAURA BOWEN: Our understanding is the city has already purchased new windscreens. We have offered to resurface the four remaining courts and provide nets, at our expense.

It’s important for the city and the residents to understand that USTA Florida and USTA offer grants for things like court improvements, equipment and programs. These funds are available to public tennis centers across the state. We have advised the city to use these grants to help cover some of these costs in the future.

What else would you like to share?

LAURA BOWEN: Tennis is booming in Florida. According to the Tennis Industry Association’s annual participation report, Florida saw a 26% increase in play in 2020, and another 8% increase in 2021. The majority of that play is happening on public tennis courts. Public tennis centers across the state are seeing tremendous growth. To reinvigorate the courts at Riverside to be a place for new players to come and participate with the existing residents would be fantastic for tennis and for the city.

Whatever the residents and city decide in terms of management of the facility, USTA Florida will continue to provide our support to all tennis facilities in Vero Beach.

We are looking forward to having a more direct dialog with residents, and are hopeful that we can schedule a public town hall in the coming weeks.