Clay Court Tennis Club Prepares for New Season

Jose Mieres is drawing from history to create a community born from clay tennis courts.

In the small Biddle Building on South Braddock Avenue at Frick Park, Mieres gathers the materials needed for volunteers who regularly maintain the clay tennis courts in Regent Square. Towels with the local club’s name hang framed on the wall, signed by today’s tennis greats—Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

“In 2005, a friend of mine from Brazil and another friend from India brought me here and showed us the courts and said, 'You know, this is something special and this is something that could be fixed up,'” Mieres said. “We played a few times, didn’t think much about it and two years later, my friend from India, Gulsham Sharma, and I started to to take it seriously.”

Now several years later, the Frick Park Clay Court Tennis Club is preparing for a new summer season, kicking it all off with a block party at 5 p.m. this Friday at the Frick Park courts in Regent Square.

Mieres, who has a background in history, cares about the preservation of Frick Park’s story just as much as the restoration of the clay tennis courts. Mieres carries news clips of the very first tournaments that took place at the courts in August 1930 in a book that also holds pictures of volunteers cleaning it up just a few years ago.

“Initially, recreation was for the privileged, not for the working class, and so recreation for the working class was a hot topic in the ‘20s and ‘30s,” Mieres said. “Pittsburgh gets on that bandwagon and starts to create recreation for the masses, which at that time was a gamble because everyone believed the working class couldn’t handle leisure. With respect to tennis, that’s where clay courts come in.”

Clay courts are uncommon in the United States, Mieres said. In the ‘50s, most public courts were switched to blacktop surfaces because they required less maintenance.

“Only the best courts survived and the best in Pittsburgh was this one,” Mieres said. “Enough people over the decades thought, ‘We should change everything, but keep this.'”

In 2007, Mieres started to organize a group to make the changes at the clay tennis courts and begin a new generation of memories and history. The group emailed the City of Pittsburgh and asked for some tools. When they couldn’t get a response fast enough, they decided to buy their own and get started.

“We thought, if we are saying it’s not that difficult to take care of them then we should be able to get the tools, very simple tools, to start doing it,” he said.

In 2007, 76 people signed up for the club. Today, there are more than 250 active members of the club who volunteer, play or use the courts.

“From the beginning, we were encouraged by the support of all of these people we didn’t know,” he said. “It’s almost like we recreated something that was here before. People always say, ‘You created something incredible,’ and I said I feel I am bringing back something that was already here. I try to look at tradition and see what the next steps should be—and it was here all along.”

president of the Regent Square Civic Association, said it has been amazing to watch how the courts have been rehabilitated in such a short time.

“Through determination and many hours of hard work, they've turned the orphaned courts into a great asset to our community,” Keebler said. “Even though I am not a tennis player, I feel happy every time I drive by the courts and see all the activity there.”

Keebler also said the tennis club is planning even more exciting work and collaborations in the Regent Square area in the future, which will be announced soon.

“The RSCA and the entire Regent Square community truly appreciates what Jose and his many volunteers have done,” she said.

Stephen Hirtle, Regent Square resident and member of the club, said it has changed the way he approaches the game of tennis. He found out about the renovations of the courts in 2008 and got involved soon after. 

"I had never played on clay and was intrigued to check it out," Hirtle said. "Since joining the club, I went from playing tennis once every few years to several times a week.  The feeling of playing on a natural surface surrounded by trees was unlike any other court."  

Mieres also said playing on a clay surface has athletic benefits. Lower body injuries are less frequent when playing on a surface that allows the players to slide.

“This is old fashioned, but maybe it should be brought back again,” Mieres said. “It shouldn’t be that hard—all around the world people have clay courts and asphalt is more expensive, so we kind of went against what is now a view that clay courts are for country clubs.”

While Mieres has traveled the country, he said he hasn’t seen a set of six, side-by-side clay tennis courts anywhere else but in Frick Park at Regent Square.

For more information on the Frick Park Clay Tennis Court Club, e-mail clayfricktennis@gmail.com or visit www.clayfricktennis.org.