To get away for tournament practice, a 14-year-old tennis sensation ventured to the Peninsula Tennis Club at Robb Field during the 2018 USTA Billie Jean King Girls 18s national championships.
Coco Gauff reached the semifinals of the tourney at the Barnes Center that year, and as pro, she competed in the inaugural WTA San Diego Open event there in 2022. That was all on a path to winning last year’s U.S. Open women’s championship.
In the recognition of the title, the USTA established the U.S. Open Legacy Initiative to improve tennis courts around the country, with $3 million in grants matching Gauff’s winning prize.
The impact has been felt at Peninsula and another storied San Diego tennis institution, the Mountain View Sports & Racquet Club in the Skyline neighborhood. Both have unveiled newly resurfaced courts and improved facilities thanks to the Legacy Initiative. The USTA donated $40,250 to Peninsula and $28,750 to Mountain View. The clubs both raised funds to finance their projects; the San Diego District Tennis Council also contributed to the fundraising efforts.
Peninsula and Mountain View are both reminiscent of Pompey Park in Delray Beach, Fla., where Gauff got her start in tennis.
When she visited San Diego for the junior nationals, Gauff was the youngest player ever to reach No. 1 in the ITF junior rankings.
“Our tennis community has known about her for a long time,” said Carole Farr, secretary on the Peninsula board of directors. “She has always seemed really poised for her age.”
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Peninsula as a tennis club, and the 12 courts themselves have a foundation dating to the 1970s.
As recently as a year ago, the club was targeted by pickleball players to convert some courts to that sport. The opening of new pickleball courts at the Barnes Center have instead helped address that need.
Peninsula remains dedicated exclusively to tennis, and current city plans allow for the development of a separate pickleball facility at Robb Field.
Meanwhile, the Peninsula hip that stood at 500 has been inching toward 600, Farr said. The club is the home to Point Loma High School’s tennis teams.
Mountain View was started in 1969 with the help of co-founder Virginia Glass, later the first female president of the American Tennis Association, the oldest African American sports organization in the country. The club has been long associated with the National Junior Tennis and Learning Network, designed to bring tennis to youngsters in underserved communities.
“Our goal is to get these kids to college, whether through tennis or not,” Mountain View executive director s Simpson-Lang said. “We have a lot of beginner kids. We try to work with the parents so that they are on the right path to achieve their goals. We want them to be good citizens and good stewards of the sport as well.”
To get more kids involved, the club offers scholarships that defray individual costs. hip dipped to 160 during the pandemic four years ago, but has since climbed to more than 300. About 100 of the players are juniors, including the Morse High School tennis teams.
Ceremonies recognizing Mountain View’s latest improvements are scheduled for June 22 at the club in Martin Luther King Jr. Community Park.
Thien is a freelance writer
