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Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n
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The loss of a number of tennis courts at Charlottetown\u2019s Victoria Park is taking a toll on players \u2013 and opportunities to grow the sport locally.<\/p>\n
A number of the courts have formed dips that allow puddles to form that can take 24 to 48 hours to dry. The fence around the courts is also high enough that balls can easily roll under and be lost during games.<\/p>\n
Jordan MacGregor, executive and technical director of Tennis P.E.I., said there are areas of the courts that could use \u201ca little bit more attention\u201d and in their current state they can create problems for players.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you’re squeegeeing, it takes significant effort to get all the runoff going. So that’s been a pretty significant detriment to people trying to get on court,\u201d MacGregor said. <\/p>\n
Water pooling on the courts creates a dangerous scenario for players, who are unable to run without risk of falls, and the rough ground makes it challenging to have a competitive game. The pooling also damages the lifespan of the court, MacGregor said.<\/p>\n
MacGregor said one of the courts has a significant crack in its surface, and two others are also in need of repairs. <\/p>\n
Pain for the tennis community<\/p>\n
The loss of a viable playing area has hurt the Island’s sport community, which MacGregor described as being \u201cextremely patient.\u201d He said tournaments have been forced out of the province, including last summer\u2019s Junior Atlantic Championships, which were played in Nova Scotia and would have brought 120 players and their families to the Island.<\/p>\n
Interest in the sport also continues to grow and having courts shut down forces the organization to search for new places to play. The city has been at work to \u201cpush us in the right direction,\u201d MacGregor said, providing funding to run the event off-Island, but the city is losing money by not bringing players and families to events here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe keep planning for certain programs, certain events, and then we have to change everything simply because things aren’t prepared or things aren’t ready, which has been a bit tough on us,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Officials with Tennis P.E.I. say one of the Victoria Park courts has a significant crack in its surface, and two others are also in need of repairs. (Laura Meader\/CBC)<\/p>\n
\u201cFor our players and community, we’ve even had to move our main hub tournaments out of town and into other municipalities. The programs that we do run, we can’t host as many players that want to play,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo that means there’s bigger wait lists, bigger frustrations from players that are passionate and wanting to get going on court.\u201d<\/p>\n
City says corrective work scheduled for spring<\/p>\n
MacGregor said the condition of the courts has been frustrating for the tennis community and he hopes Tennis P.E.I. can be involved in the city’s plans to repair the courts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, we’re at the mercy of waiting for the company to fix it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the City of Charlottetown recognized the current state of the tennis courts. Documents from city council noted the courts need a precise one per cent grade without low spots to ensure proper drainage.<\/p>\n
It notes corrective work is planned for the spring with temporary closures a possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cCity staff are aware of deficiencies with the new tennis courts constructed at Victoria Park in 2025 and are working with the contractor to develop a plan to address these issues, with the goal of minimizing impacts to users.\u201d<\/p>\n
Best-case scenario, MacGregor explained, would be to keep the five-court pad running while maintenance is conducted on some of the courts. He hopes work can be done at the latter end of the season, like August, but closures will impact summer programming either way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s still playable. It’s not ideal, but I think it’s just hard on the community to lose a five-court pad two summers in a row.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-466522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}