What makes a tennis court?
Of course, it has something to do with the quality of the net. Whether the playing surface has cracks or not; how the ball reacts when it is pulled to the ground by gravity. Does it bang? Or does it slide? Something in between?
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
What really defines a tennis court is the people who play on it: the people who are often allowed to play on it. Is the court only open to members? Reserved for residents? Accessible only to those with enough money in their recreational bank account?
Or can everyone bring their own racket?
That’s the way it is at Pompey Park in Delray Beach, Florida, and that goes a long way toward explaining Coco Gauff – and the success of American tennis, especially women’s tennis – over the years.
(Photo of Pompey Park: Scott McIntyre for The Athletic; Map: Drew Jordan for The Athletic)
Pompey Park is nothing special in the lexicon of epic tennis courts, in the US or anywhere else. This is not the famous lawn of the Longwood Cricket Club near Boston. Apart from the colour of the courts, Pompey Park has nothing in common with the exclusivity behind the gates of the Los Angeles Tennis Club, where Fred Perry and Don Budge played to the delight of Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich.
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
Pompey Park’s two recently resurfaced courts are located in the northeast corner of the sprawling property. They’re about a mile from the ocean, but closer to the far less fancy part of town – near Interstate 95 and the railroad tracks. In the distance, there are some baseball diamonds, some basketball courts, some grass, and some shade trees.
It’s a beautiful place to start the day, and that’s exactly what Gauff and her father, Corey, did so often in her early years, back when she was just an athletic elementary school kid trying to figure out a sport.
“I’ve been playing there since I was six years old,” said Gauff, who grew up about a five-minute drive from Pompey Park. “They’re free public courts.”
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
Tennis will probably never shake off its reputation as a country club sport and a pastime for the rich. And yet there are about 270,000 tennis courts in the United States for about 24 million players, and about 70 percent of the country’s tennis is played on public courts.
However, there are public facilities and there are public facilities. Some of them charge fees and are subject to registration rules.
Then there are places like Pompey Park. It’s first come, first served. Stay as long as you like, or as long as you can stand the South Florida heat and humidity. Chop away, gossip along the way, or train to become the next great American champion.
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
It’s the kind of environment Americans sometimes take for granted. The tennis boom in the second half of the 20th century led to the construction of many tennis courts in many parks and at many schools across the country. And so began the Williams sisters, Gauff and last year’s Wimbledon junior champion Clervie Ngounoue.
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
As the kids say today: “It’s not that deep.” But that’s not how it works in many places.
“I’m a little surprised that we can play here for free,” said Laszlo Fekete on a weekday morning.
Fekete and his wife, Barabara, had come to Florida from Norway, where, he said, playing tennis normally requires club membership and paying for court time. They are tennis nuts.
They took their clubs on vacation to Florida, and when Laszlo contacted a local pro on Instagram, she recommended they meet at Pompey Park, where they could play as long as they wanted in the late morning when the locals started to hide from the heat. That was the day before. The Feketes loved the idea so much that they returned 24 hours later.
That’s what Gauff and her father have always done, before and after school and for a large part of the day on weekends. It’s not like that’s all they can do. Delray Beach also has a huge tennis center not far from Pompey Park. They even host a small ATP Tour event every February.
There are lots of tennis programs there with lots of coaches who give courses and explain the correct form. At first, the Gauffs did without all of that.
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
“The easiest thing is to go to the public places and play,” she said.
And they knew Pompey Park was the right place. Their family has a little history there.
Let’s go back a little more than half a century. Florida is a very different place. Black kids are not exactly welcome in youth baseball leagues.
Gauff’s grandmother, Yvonne Lee Odom, who was among the first black students to attend the city’s public schools, and her grandfather, a former minor league baseball player named Eddie “Red” Odom who worked in the local parks department, decided to do something about it.
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
They started a Little League for black children, based in Pompey Park. The big baseball field in the distance, a few hundred yards from where Gauff hit her first balls over the net? That’s now Odom Field, her grandparents’ name written in big block letters on the scoreboard.
Gauff has known since she was a child how important her parents’ lives were for the people in her hometown and for the children who play in this park. She also knows how important it was that she was allowed to play there.
“The selection was by no means random,” she said.
Now there is another sign. It is located at the gate to the tennis courts and explains that the courts have been resurfaced with a grant from the U.S. Tennis Association.
(Scott McIntyre / For The Athletic)
“In honor of Coco Gauff, the 2023 US Open champion,” it says.
It’s much smaller than the one with her grandparents’ names on it and overlooks the baseball field a few hundred yards away. She’s perfectly happy with that.
(Top photos: Scott McIntyre; Getty Images; Design: Eamonn Dalton, Drew Jordan for The Athlete)
