From the President – August 2026

Greetings, WTC Members and friends from the Washoe Tennis Club Board!  Here are a few items of interest about what’s happening around the Club:

Club Activities

Our Club continues to host a number of enjoyable singles and doubles activities for players of all levels.  Board Member and Activities Coordinator, Chad Twedt, has continued to direct and manage singles ladder events and the now-famous “Bump Doubles” events three seasons annually.  The July-September season is currently underway, and players are welcome to join anytime.  Links to these events can be found below:

Ladder Registration: https://washoetennis.org/events/washoe-tennis-ladder

Bump Doubles Registration: https://washoetennis.org/events/bump-doubles

Washoe Slam Tennis Tournament

The Club hosted the inaugural “Washoe Slam” tennis tournament in early May, and it turned out to be an overwhelming success.  Over 100 entrants played in Men’s, Women’s singles and doubles and Mixed Doubles events from 3.0 level up to Open level categories.  Tournament Director and WTC Board Member Sean Lockwood along with a handful of staff assistants ran a well-oiled machine and kept things on track amid periodic rain-out periods over a 3-day period.  Kudos to Sean and the tournament team for making this event such a success!  Given the positive feedback on this tournament, we plan to run it again next year with even greater turnout.

Facility Upgrades and Grounds and Court Maintenance

Court Amenities

The Board has purchased and installed several new wind screens for some of the courts as well as replacing two nets.  Late last year, we received a second cabana with bench seating, and it was assembled and placed between courts 1 and 2.  These cabanas are a pretty big investment, but they have proven to be great places to seek refuge from the summer sun on the changeovers.

Seating

We continue to replace benches and chairs around the courts as needed to provide for adequate spectator seating for those thrilling ladder matches and USTA competitions.

Court Surfacing

As you may be aware, the Club has routinely invested in court re-surfacing for one pair of courts each year, making it a three-year rotation.  The scope of work involves minor crack repair with a special Rite Way Crack Repair system, coating the areas with re-surface material, applying re-surface layers over the full court, coloring and striping the new surface, and repainting of the net posts.  Because the underlying asphalt base has imperfections, there are some crack repairs that temporarily mask the problem and eventually (sometimes within a month or two) fail and show re-cracking.  

The routine of resurfacing two courts annually has allowed us to keep the six courts in playable condition for many years.  We are aware, however, that in order to achieve long-lasting playability, eventually the courts will need to be refurbished, meaning that the underlying asphalt base will need to be removed and replaced with new material. The significant investment of a complete court refurbishment (upwards of $400,000 for six courts) is something that the Board is attempting to work towards as a long-term goal.  Accordingly, we have been building up a reserve toward this end.  In the past year, we have invested and grown a portion of the Club membership revenue in a short term CD.  This year, we have made the decision to forego the annual re-surfacing (courts 5 & 6) were up to bat this year, and instead invest that $30K resurfacing expense into the reserve for future overhaul.  Although court 5 is showing a slight cracking near the baseline on the south end, we are hopeful that we can let this go for another 12-14 months and bank that savings.  We ask for your patience and understanding as we continue to work toward a most effective long-term solution to keep the courts healthy.

Hedge Monsters

The hedges that run lengthwise adjacent to court 3 and perpendicular between Courts 3-4 and 5-6 have become rather unruly and have been known to eat errant tennis balls at the most inopportune moments.  The Board authorized a few hundred dollars to purchase an electric hedge trimmer, and several of your Board Members have been working to prune the monsters back to a more manageable size.  Work continues on this endeavor, but we think this is a great and modest investment to keep these hedges in check.

Welcome New Members (and some Returning Re-Joiners)!

Beers Family Michael Bott Samuel Buechler Rich Danner Natalie Dejan Sean Dickerson Dimo Ditchev Jack Feeney Elie Firzli Fernandez Family

Kaison Fong Jayasuryaa Jagadeesan Kato Family Kathy Kimball Robert Knowles Jay Long Matt Long Martinez Marcos and Rogstad Family

Maddi Nilson Betsy Oltmann Bill Ruskin David Salinger Zac Salinger Paul Schiffman Chris Sexton Meredith Spira Rafal Zielinski

USTA Team Tennis

USTA league tennis is a great way to foster competition, and quite a few Club Members are participating in the wide variety of USTA team play.  The Adult 18 and over men’s and women’s leagues have just finished up local league play in June, and we are in the midst of the summer leagues’ season with 40 and over mixed teams in full swing.  In late August, combo teams and Reno/Tahoe early start ‘27 40+ teams get underway.  Per agreement with Washoe County, the Club makes a number of courts available for USTA play at specific times (weekend afternoons and early evening hours Tuesdays and Thursdays).  We strive to strike a balance between the court availability for general membership and support of the USTA competition, and hopefully this arrangement continues to meet that goal.

Rich Salgo, WTC Board President