Grounds Committee members have been working hard to keep up with the wind we’ve been having lately. They’ve been reattaching the windscreen on the tennis court fence.
Unfortunately, I have some bad news... Committee members have reported a problem that is beyond their ability to fix. The posts that suspend the tennis court net (not the fence) have begun to move. They may have buckled under pressure applied by the net tensioning winch. It’s possible that unsuspecting tennis players over-tightened the net's tension, possibly in combination with heat-softened asphalt, causing the damage.
John Roerich is a tennis player and a neighbor who's been helping out a lot on the windscreen. He told me today that sometimes players think that the net should be very tight and perfectly level. Actually, it shouldn't. Apparently, tennis regulations say that the net should be higher at the anchoring posts and slightly lower in the middle. A regulation height is also specified for these distances, similar to a regulation height of a basketball net.
Since the tennis court is in a City-owned park, we’ve notified Chris Petree, Hugo’s Director of Public Works about the problem.