As the publicly available tennis courts begin to dwindle within Boulder, the spirit of the sport’s players continues to thrive.
Later this spring, the 27 courts at CU South and the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center will be demolished for student housing and flood mitigation, leaving many without a place to play. On Saturday afternoon, an estimated 250 patrons gathered inside the all-weather bubble across the street from Folsom Field to celebrate the decades many have spent within its confines, playing the sport they all love.
One player, 17-year-old Tomas Majetic, began his wheelchair tennis career through the integrated program at RMTC. He’s currently the No. 12-ranked junior in the world and will be heading to Antalya, Turkey later this month to compete in the BNP Paribas World Team Cup.
“It’s home. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent here the past four years I’ve been here,” he said. “The integrated aspect of it, being able to train with able-bodied players, gives you a ball that you’ll see on the big stages and stuff. It’s a faster game, playing able-bodied, so you get used to faster and then it makes it a little bit easier playing wheelchair players.”
He joined a cohort of patrons of all ages, ranging from 3 to 101 years old, who played tennis through RMTC. On Saturday, they shared stories, admired hundreds of photos, and reminisced over food, wine and through their usual gameplay on the courts.
Kate Minear and Orlee Roth, both 10, doubled up to play a round of “thousand ball rally” as co-owner Kendall Chitambar narrated their game. Both girls said they’ve been practicing at RMTC for one or two years, and will be sad to see it go.
“It makes tennis a lot of fun,” Minear said. “It makes it really magical. I don’t really know how to describe it. It just makes it fun and still competitive, though.”
The two wore big smiles during and after their game, further proving their affinity not just for RMTC, but for tennis at large. Now, they’ll have to look for an alternative.
“I don’t have another place to play tennis,” Roth said. “This is like the only indoor place and it’s hard that it’s going down because then next winter, I don’t know where I’m going to play.”
Last month, Kendall and Donna Chitambar tabled an application with Boulder County to build a new facility, dubbed the “Tennis Center of the Rockies,” which they had hoped to build on 79th Street near Lookout Road in Gunbarrel.
In an email sent to supporters on March 15, the Chitambars said that “Boulder County received more than 1,000 emails regarding our application for the Tennis Center of the Rockies — it was also one of the most heavily commented applications in recent memory.” The comments, they said, were split roughly evenly between the support and the opposition.
Duke Paluch worked at Harvest House tennis starting in 1985, and bought the facility in 2012 with the Chitambars before converting it into RMTC. He said that the club peaked at around 400 memberships before opening itself up more to the public — through various programs and tournaments — and ended its run with about 250.
“It’s really a difficult situation for a lot of people because we’re their last chance, more or less, for playing tennis,” Paluch said. “With the shortage of facilities in Boulder and CU South going away, South Campus going away, it’s hard. And it’s not like they can pick up and join another club because there’s wait lists at other clubs.”
Despite their recent setback, the Chitambars hope that they can one day serve the Boulder tennis community once again and are currently looking for alternative paths forward for the Tennis Center of the Rockies.
For now, however, they and their patrons will have to wait and see what happens.
“Honestly, we’re trying to figure out a way forward here,” Kendall Chitambar said. “We don’t know what that’s going to look like. We feel the opposition. I’m in no way done. What we see out here, this event and the people that have come. … I am, myself, compelled to move forward. I am, myself, compelled to not let this go. Harvest House Tennis and the Rocky Mountain Tennis Center have been part of what I hope is just act one. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but I can’t let this community go. I would be devastated if I let it down.”
