TAMPA, Fla. — Tennis and pickleball players who use the courts at the Tejas Pradip Patel HC Tennis Center are asking the college to keep the facility open until a replacement is ready, as the Rays plan a new ballpark on the site.
Players said the center has long served local athletes, with 23 tennis courts and 15 pickleball courts.
“So, we’ve been playing here for the last five years,” said tennis player Alex Bourdiaux, who said the number of courts helped draw him and his wife, Whitney Yoder Bourdiaux, to the facility. “We can come here and be part of a team.”
Other players said they have used the center for much longer.
“I’ve been playing here about 14 years,” pickleball player Rick Detres said.
“I’ve actually been playing tennis here for over 40 years,” tennis player Michelle Verdisco said.
Dana Andrews, a past president of the United States Tennis Association’s Florida Chapter, told Spectrum News earlier this year that the center is home to 3% of Hillsborough County’s tennis courts but sees 26% of its tennis play.
“There are so many high schools and women’s leagues and men’s leagues and mixed leagues that play out of this facility,” Verdisco said. “It’s constantly busy.”
Players said they are concerned nearby facilities will not be able to handle the demand if the Hillsborough College center closes before a replacement opens.
“They cannot absorb the amount of people that stop playing here in other facilities in and around town,” Detres said.
Rays CEO Ken Babby said in March that the team is committed to building a new, world-class tennis facility as part of the project. HC President Dr. Ken Atwater reaffirmed that commitment earlier this week.
“I don’t have any details, timelines, and so forth yet, but we are working on timelines,” Atwater said. “We are working to talk about when, but we will have even a better facility than we currently have now.”
Players said the lack of details about the replacement facility is part of their concern.
“Where’s that money going to come from? Who’s going to pay for it when we have it all right here, all ready to go?” Verdisco said. “I mean, it seems like a waste of public resource to tear this down.”
Yoder Bourdiaux said she and her husband are fans of all of Tampa Bay’s professional sports teams but want their sport and community preserved.
“We support all the teams, have all of the jerseys, but we’re also athletes, and, you know, our sport that we play is a really important part of our community here and our lifestyle here, too,” she said. “It would just be really sad if that was taken away from us here.”
An online petition to keep the facility open had 425 signatures as of Friday night. Players said the center has told them this will be the last season they can play there, and the season ends in November.
The group said it has met with Rays representatives, who listened to their concerns but did not provide information about where a new center would be or when it could open. Players said United States Tennis Association representatives also attended and said they would help get the facility going.
Babby previously said Al Lopez Park could be a possible location and that the issue could be worked out during talks on the community benefits agreement.