Blanchette Park – A Victory of Sorts….

For our first match in 97 days we headed to St. Charles, Missouri  on  a sunny day that was forecasted to hit about 50 degrees. St. Charles is one of the oldest cities in Missouri serving as the first state capitol in 1821.   We decided to stop by the new urbanist utopia of New Town as our ReMax superstar Stan Angelov is representing a client in the development.  

New Town has a set of private tennis courts called Island Harbor Tennis and Basketball Club.   The courts are an interesting white color and do not look like they are often played.    We approached the courts which actually have a residential front door installed on a chain link fence and found them locked.

We were sure New Town would let us play a match for a little free publicity.   That was sadly not the case.   The courts are now run by New Town Fitness who doesn’t even list them as part of their facilities.  So these courts are now truly forgotten and locked up tight as Fort Knox.

We proceeded to Blanchette Park.  Blanchette Park was named after the French Canadien Fur Trader who founded St. Charles and should not be confused with the Canadien Tennis Coach by the same name.  We began our match under the watchful eye of the St. Charles Police Department.  

The three tennis courts at Blanchette Park are a little worn but well located near restrooms, ballfields, playgrounds and a water park.  As we warmed up we could tell it would be an unusual match.  Wind, no netstraps, cold balls and racquets were all factors as the temperature remained around 40 degrees while we played.

Scott broke Stan to start and failed to consolidate the break as Stan broke right back.   The match see-sawed to three all in the first set before Stan was able to hold serve twice to win it 6-3.    Lots of mishits and low bouncing balls.

Second Set started out the same way with fight to 3-3 at that point Stan remembered he had borrowed a Mazda CX5 from his favorite salesman Steve Heffernan at Bommarito Ellisville and needed to get the car back.    It was decided to play a seven point tiebreaker.   Stan ran out to a 4-0 lead and Scott stormed back to get to 4-4 and then Stan ended it with three points in a row.    Was this an official Stan victory???  you can be the judge of that.

We left and headed back to St. Louis County where we enjoyed fantastic Lobster Bisque, Gyros and Stella Artois at the Mediterranean Grill.

Overall Courts bounce true and fairly slow.  Courts are missing netstraps.   We rate the location an 8 and the courts a 7.5 for overall rating of 7.75.