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Story archive-last 3 months (click on headline to open): Kielbowicz wins final Pearson Ford Open at ITC (6-26-10) First-round loss for Chappell at Wimbledon juniors (6-25-10) Carmel's Chen, Rodefeld take state doubles final (6-12-10) South Bend St. Joe's wins girls' state title (6-7-10) Chappell out in second round of French juniors (6-1-10)
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Little more than two weeks after it closed for good, the remaining six outdoor courts at the former Indianapolis Tennis Center
have already begun their new life...as a parking lot. Although the area is supposedly destined to be a green
space - and provide a "much needed" corridor between the expanded NCAA headquarters and the IUPUI library, it apparently
will first be used as more auxiliary parking. The university wasted little time in removing the perimeter fencing
and paving and striping the former practice and show courts. Of course, more money will now have to be spent later
to take up the asphalt in order to turn it into the green space it is designated to be. (8-20-10)
Indy's Brooke Austin (shown at left with her teammates and coach Kathy Rinaldi), helped the girls' US team defend its
title at the ITF World Junior Team championships in the Czech Republic. Team USA, which has now won the event for
a record four years in a row, won all three of its pool play matches in Group A by 3-0 scores to advance to the semifinals,
where it defeated China. The top-seeded Americans had its toughest match against Ukraine in the championship, winning
by a a 2-1 count with Austin providing a key three-set win in singles.
(8-4-10)
Even though it "technically" had one more day of life, the outside courts at the Indianapolis Tennis Center looked
more like a ghost town on Wednesday, resembling more of a neglected city park facility than the world-class venue it
had been for 30 years. Windscreens were already down, and nets and netposts were already removed from all but the two
remaining clay courts and the grandstand court. Rather than tumbleweeds, a pair of tennis balls sit idle on a couple
of courts. Inside, the back curtains were down and the staff was checking off the list of remaining "to-do's".
The center did have one last hurrah last Saturday, hosting a four-hour open house so that members and other local
players could have one final chance for a hit downtown. The indoor facility and remaining outdoor courts are set to
close tomorrow (Aug. 5) as IUPUI moves ahead with plans to turn the acreage into greenspace, additional parking, and/or other
campus buildings. According to the university, the facility, which had hosted the Indianapolis Tennis Championships
(in its various iterations) for 30 years, was not "mission-centric" to its broader academic goals, not was it able
to generate the type of revenue needed for short- and long-term maintenance and upgrades. The 900+ members have
since been scrambling to secure indoor court time at the remaining metro tennis clubs, while a group known as Save
Downtown Tennis has begun to ramp up its efforts to locate a comparable facility somewhere within the downtown area. (8-4-10)
A frustrating year due to nagging injuries took a positive turn for Rajeev Ram at the inaugural Atlanta Tennis Championships,
as he and partner Scott Lipsky took the doubles championship with a 6-3, 6-7, 1-0 (12-10) win over Rohan Bopanna and Kristof
Vliegen in the opener of the Olympus U.S. Open Series. Coming off his best year since joining the ATP Tour, with his
first singles title in Newport, Ram's best singles showing was the semi-finals in the Tallahassee Challenger, where he lost
to Robby Ginepri, while he'd advanced to the semis in doubles in a pair of tournaments (San Jose & Tallahassee). In Atlanta, which purchased the sanction formerly belonging to the
Indianapolis Tennis Championships, Rajeev took top-seeded Andy Roddick to three sets before falling but had a strong
run in doubles which included a 7-6, 7-6 win over John Isner and James Blake in the semi-final. The complete match will
be televised by Tennis Channel tonight (Sunday, July 25) at 8 p.m.
(7-25-10)
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