Lion’s Park, Eureka
We traveled this week to Lion’s Park in Eureka, Missouri. Our Bulgarian was absent trying to maintain his #1 ReMax agent in St. Louis Metropolitan Area for the fourth year in a row. We drafted two wiley veterans from Franklin county and an Okie to play some doubles. Bob Faust who is a well known local tennis dude(captain of many USTA teams) and a man who possesses a stellar net game.
Bob partnered with motorcycle riding Jimmy Connors style backhand owner Lee Parsons. Scott took the Okie Charles Welton a 4.5 player who can really crank it up when necessary! Lion’s Park is interesting to say the least, one one side we had a bunch of firefighters setting up the Eureka Backdraft Rodeo and on the back side attached to the court were batting cages. Fortunately they were not occupied at the time of the match. Also nearby was an elementary school with an extremely loud intercom – our warm up was interrupted to remind us to place our recycling bins outside the door….
First set was tight and after a couple weeks indoors everybody was having trouble keeping the ball in the court. At 4-4 the wiley veterans were able to send a couple volleys and parsons flat backhands right by us and they broke to go up 5-4. Parsons then closed it out on his serve.
A strategy change was in order and Charles switched to backhand while Scott took the forehand. This worked better as took the second set 6-2. After the second set it was decided to play a full third set.
Bob and Lee fought hard and we started out 2-2 then Scott and Charles rallied and reeled off four games in a row for the win. Really fun match, courts were average speed and fairly well maintained. All agreed no weird bounces or any negative reports as to actual court condition.
We rated the court an 8 and the location only a 5 for an average of 6.5. Low rating on location was due to the numerous distractions including rodeo, ball fields, batting cage and highway nearby. If we were slightly younger we might have capped it off with a trip to nearby Six Flags!