Tennis courts open with ceremony
Mike Mazzeo
Issue date: 10/17/08 Section: Sports
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The new courts officially opened up for play by students Sept. 22, but the original scheduled opening ceremony date, Sept. 26, was cancelled and pushed back due to poor weather.
The ceremony, which had many speakers including Senior Vice President Jim Tucker, Director of Athletics Eric Zillmer and Varsity Tennis Coach Tricia Udicious, featured an opening service by everyone in attendance and concluded with a mixed-doubles match that pitted Zillmer and Associate Athletic Director-SWA Laura White against varsity tennis players Melissa Lewis and Jason Savage-Pollock.
"I though it was a nice opening event for tennis on campus, even though everyone's already been playing on these courts," Associate Director of Recreation-Intramurals Steve Koch said. "But officially we're saying welcome everybody, come play on these courts, be involved in intramural tennis and support our tennis team."
The project, which began in May and cost $500,000, took off in an effort to replace the old tennis courts, which were demolished so construction of the new 34th Street Residence Hall could get underway.
"Before we had it totally open, we had UPenn students here playing," Tucker said. So if it's good enough for UPenn I think we've stepped up a notch from where we've been."
The new venue will feature only two courts instead of the three at the old location, but thanks to the persistence of intramural tennis liaison Shams Naim, players will now be able to play until 10 p.m. daily with the addition of lights surrounding the venue's perimeter.
"A couple months back I heard about the plans for the courts and I e-mailed Mr. [Jim] Tucker," Naim said. "I told him, 'You're taking away one of the tennis courts, you're only putting in two as opposed to three.' So I said, 'You might as well put lights up if you're gonna take a court away.'"
Naim, who was able to see the final plans before they were approved, gave the administration credit for working with him to make the light project come to fruition.
"Just seeing [the lights] proves the fact that the administration does listen to you when you are interested in the University and providing some feedback," he said.
The new courts are just the latest project for the athletic department. Last month it announced that there would be an expansion to the Daskalakis Athletic Center and the addition of a Recreation Center.
Zillmer, who said in his speech that there could potentially be a professional tennis tournament at Drexel when the Armory is completed, is elated at the direction the University is headed in terms of providing its students with more space for recreation.
"I'm so happy that from where we were 10 years ago with a master plan and having really little recreational space to now where we now have greens, volleyball courts and tennis courts," he said. "The millennium generation wants a lifestyle that's healthy and competitive. They want to play and network socially and we're creating these spaces where they can do this, and do it in a safe environment."
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