Indoor Tennis in Reno: The History and The Future
by Chad Twedt
Disclaimer: The WTC is not affiliated with Nevada Indoor Tennis and Pickleball, nor is the WTC helping to fund the project in any way. This article is hosted on the WTC site for informational purposes only.
One doesn’t need to be a tennis fanatic to become deeply and acutely aware of Reno’s lack of indoor tennis courts. During a significant portion of the year, Reno experiences what is generally considered tennis-incompatible weather: extreme cold, extreme heat, precipitation, wind, and/or smoke from California fires. Not only is this continually disappointing for recreational players, it limits future possibilities for youth in this area wishing to pursue professional tennis or even Division 1 collegiate tennis.
Reno tennis veterans suffer an additional punch to the gut every time they think back to what tennis in Reno was like just a few decades ago. Even though the population of Reno 30 years ago was less than half of today’s population, the city enjoyed nine indoor courts between two different facilities: The MGM Grand (which became Bally’s in 1986, then the Reno Hilton in 1992, and finally Grand Sierra Resort starting in 2006) had a basement with five indoor courts, and Lakeridge Tennis Club had another four.
Under ownership of the Hilton, the courts originally built by MGM Grand started to be used as overflow space to make room for conventions, until finally in 2002, the Hilton decided to permanently convert the courts to convention space. Hotels and casinos routinely (and understandably) make similar calculations to maximize revenue, such as when virtually all casinos everywhere replaced the slow-moving, labor-intensive, and sometimes complicated (but for many, deeply loved) game of Keno with more profitable, simple, low-overhead slot machines in the late 1990s and early 2000s. To the Hilton, this move was entirely rational and understandable, as it is difficult to compete with the profits of conventions. But to the tennis community, it was devastating.
Even more heartbreaking for the tennis community was the recent Lakeridge saga. When Lakeridge Tennis Club owner Nate Topol died in a 2013 car accident between Truckee and Tahoe City, Lakeridge ownership transferred to his three children. Successful for over 50+ years but wanting to take the family’s business life in a different direction, the family decided to sell the club to a developer. Reno Land purchased it officially in 2020, originally indicating in their plans that they would keep the swimming pool and some tennis courts, but after the zoning permit change was approved, Reno Land submitted new plans to remove everything. Lakeridge Tennis Club was demolished almost overnight. Teaching pros moved away, and the Lakeridge junior tennis program evaporated.
Going back even further in Reno’s history, there were some additional indoor courts on the corner of Lakeside and Moana in the early ’70s, although with ceilings so low that players couldn’t hit standard lobs without hitting the ceiling.
The Lakeridge and Hilton courts were profitable right up to the point of sale, so there was no question of demand. Imagine the demand today, as a community that has more than doubled in population over the past two decades wrestles with having zero indoor courts. Reno’s need for indoor courts is dire, and its history is tragic. Not all stories get the happy ending we crave, especially real-life stories. But I firmly believe this story is going to have a happy ending, and it might be soon.
Kurt Richter, a tennis professional who coached the men’s and women’s UNR tennis teams for 17 years, has been working hard researching, planning, proposing, recruiting and collaborating his way to bringing indoor courts to Reno. His near decade of diligent work has paid off, as the non-profit group Nevada Indoor Tennis and Pickleball (NITP) has received approval and clearance from Washoe County to construct a 6-court indoor tennis facility and 4-court pickleball facility on an unutilized area of the Washoe County Golf Course, immediately neighboring the current Plumas courts to the west. All that is needed now is funding.
After hearing about the approved plans, I asked Kurt to get some coffee with me and tell me more about the project. Kurt had mentioned his plans to me here and there over the years, but I wanted to finally get a complete feel for how “real” this project was and how likely it would be to succeed. I came away from our meeting with absolute confidence in the project. A month ago, it was hard for me to imagine this facility being built. Now, I find it impossible to imagine that it won’t. Kurt has been laser-focused on it, and his relentless pursuit clearly will not end until it is finally completed.
Kurt has been a tennis professional in the Reno area for 40 years, and his experience goes well beyond his collegiate coaching for 17 years. He himself was a nationally ranked junior player, an all All American/Division Champion in college, and led a successful Open career nationally and abroad. He taught, coached and managed at public facilities (MGM/Bally’s, Plumas), a resort (Tahoe Donner), and privately (Lakeridge and Caughlin). He also volunteered his time to do wheelchair coaching (Patty Rollison and Dave Van Clief) as well as coaching the tennis team for McQueen high school.
The NITP board of directors consists of five people: four tennis professionals with vast expertise and knowledge in the tennis industry, and one representative who will keep the board well-connected to the recreational community. All of these board members will bring a robust set of tennis and business skills to the table. Additionally, Kurt has collaborated with numerous people along the way to develop a business plan and present it to the county, including former dean of the UNR small business department Rod Jorgenson, entrepreneur and philanthropist Ken Krater, and Marsha Berkbigler, former county commissioner who was the driving force in getting this “land use” unsolicited proposal through Washoe County and whose ward included the land where NITP will be built.
What struck me the most was Kurt’s strong, almost life-or-death urge to rebuild Reno’s youth tennis community. There are certainly various youth tennis programs around Reno, but without the support of year-round indoor facilities, it is extremely difficult for our tennis youth to become competitive on a national level. Reno used to output one to three full-ride division 1 scholarship players every year, but our community has only put out two over the past 15 years. Our tennis kids have to travel to the Bay Area and LA constantly if they want even the slimmest hope of pursuing elite tennis.
While some travel is inevitable for any elite youth development no matter where one lives, Kurt points out that there just isn’t a “culture” of elite youth competition to be found in Reno. Such culture occurs both on and off court, creating close-knit clumps of elite students who bond and feed off of each other, always striving to best each other. This culture takes a generation or two to fully create, as a big component of it is when highly-respected, almost hero-like players and coaches return back to the program they themselves trained in, idolized by the youth who absorb their every word like a sponge.
Kurt and Ken expressed a desire to give the UNR men’s and women’s tennis teams, and perhaps even high school tennis teams, a place to go when bad weather prevents the teams from practicing or playing matches. Kurt also has a goal to work with other non-profit organizations to give kids free tennis clinics each week.
Such scenarios are just out of the question without an indoor facility. For three years, Kurt kept a journal documenting Reno’s weather: how many non-pristine days does Reno get each year? “Non-pristine” was defined as (1) 10mph or higher wind, (2) 40° or colder, (3) rain/snow, or (4) 90° or warmer. It turns out that a good year consists of 40% non-pristine days, while a bad year would be 65%, and this doesn’t even account for California smoke.
These challenges also make it really difficult and even downright punishing for even the best tennis instructors to make a living. Many of them must work like animals in the wild: they work themselves to death each summer, often 7 days per week, so they can survive starvation during colder months due to constant cancellations and students whose tennis games go into outright hibernation.
After hearing Kurt talk about Reno’s need for indoor courts at length, it became clear why Kurt has been able to persist through so many challenges he has encountered. He spent 3 years researching potential properties alone, and another year of research went into figuring out how the facility would be built. Many potential warehouses weren’t tall enough and would require too much retrofitting to work. Other places were severely overpriced. The original plan was finally to use tennis bubbles, but after an eight-month-long process collaborating with fire marshals, it turns out there just isn’t any practical way to get around the fire hazard they would pose in Reno’s extremely dry climate. Tennis bubbles are less expensive than permanent buildings, and they are everywhere in wet places like Atlanta, Pittsburgh or Seattle. Ultimately, Reno Indoor Tennis and Pickleball will be a permanent structure built with steel framing.
When this project is fully funded, it will be a huge gift to the community, but that isn’t where the giving ends. Washoe County and other organizations have already benefitted from Kurt’s efforts. Washoe County takes care of federally-owned land, and the federal government gives grants to the county to take care of the land. Unfortunately, federal funds were cut way back around 2011-2012, which prevented Washoe County from building any additional infrastructure since it had become difficult even to do basic maintenance of public parks, such as lawn mowing. Kurt originally approached Washoe County official Al Rogers (former City of Reno parks & rec director) with an idea to build indoor tennis courts on Washoe County land, and Al encouraged Kurt to go forward, pointing out that Washoe County needed more of this kind of creative collaboration. The bad news at that time was that there was no entrepreneurial program in place.
Kurt addressed this with Ken Krater, ensuring that other organizations could follow in their footsteps when wanting to plan projects of their own. With the help of Marsha Berkbigler, who was endlessly persistent in motivating every pertinent department within Washoe County to finish their part of the package, they helped Washoe County develop an entrepreneurial plan that can now be utilized by outside organizations in order to make similar proposals of their own to encourage development of public infrastructure, whether it be libraries or ice rinks. Outside organizations can now use the new ready-to-go “unsolicited proposal” package to help organizations write their proposals, streamlining the process to secure PPPs (Public-Private Partnerships).
When these unsolicited proposals are approved, they result in win-win scenarios. For example, the Washoe Tennis Club (est. 1923) has a deal with Washoe County that gives Washoe Tennis Club (on the Washoe golf course off of Moana) control over scheduling of the courts in exchange for the club resurfacing two courts per year with membership dues. Washoe County wins because the cost of court maintenance is shouldered by the club, and the community wins since the courts are always in such great condition, not to mention providing various in-house club events to those who support the courts with membership fees. The Reno Tennis Center courts (off of Plumas) has a similar deal, although with an extra middle man: Washoe County leases land to the City of Reno as long as the city agrees to maintain the land, and in turn the City of Reno accepts bids from private contractors. The chosen vendor enters into 2- or 3-year “concessionary” agreements with the city, assuming control of the courts in exchange for taking care of the facility and courts and sharing revenue with the city.
Reno Ice was the first non-profit group to take advantage of the new, streamlined entrepreneurial package, helping to bring a top-quality ice rink to the community. Such proposals were fairly easy to make 50 or 100 years ago, but with today’s additional bureaucratic red tape, this streamlined process is a huge asset to the community. Ken Krater draws additional inspiration from Reno Ice’s success since the demand for indoor tennis courts in the Reno area is as high or higher today than the demand for an ice rink before it was built. “I am confident it will happen,” says Ken.
Nevada Indoor Tennis and Pickleball would also be the first indoor facility to have dedicated pickleball space. Tennis and pickleball players alike will appreciate this since neither player prefers playing on a court with both tennis and pickleball lines drawn on it, not to mention the casualty of tennis courts, already in limited supply, when they are altogether removed and converted to pickleball courts.
Any organization with 501(c)(3) status must file publicly each year. This greatly increases the chances that public fund-raising for Nevada Indoor Tennis and Pickleball will be successful, as donors can always see exactly how their money is being utilized. No paychecks will be issued to any NITP staff members until the project is complete. It will take $6 million to make this happen, so the project will obviously need big money donors: foundations, philanthropists, fundraisers, and perhaps some generous corporate donors, but of course small donations are welcome.
A basic blueprint and 3D-rendered video of the facility are showcased on the organization’s website. All that is left is to fund the already-approved and planned project. To philanthropists in the area who are looking for a way to profoundly help the Reno community, I can think of no better way to do so. I just chipped in a $50 drop in the bucket, and I plan to continue giving something each year until it finally happens. As a recreational player, and as one who especially wants to see the tennis community in Reno explode as it rightfully should given our population, I hope others will do what they can and spread the word.
Nevada Indoor Tennis & Pickleball: https://nevadaindoortennispickleball.com
