The Valley of Plastic Fire
The summer of 2019 has been wet. So wet in fact that we are on the verge of breaking all previous flood records for the St. Louis area. On a gloomy Sunday morning we headed deep into West County to meet our friends Santiago Beltran and Ben Lam for some early morning doubles. Our research had indicated we might just have enough dry time to get a match in before the rains would come again….
Santiago had identified a private subdivision court in a secluded location. We all decided to hike to the courts carrying our equipment. The court is only accessible through a small path and is located in a valley next to a small lake. As we entered the court we could immediately see that the surface was composed of plastic squares locked together possibly a Versacourt system laid over the original hard court surface.
Stan and I have played on one court like this in our history and that was Pioneer Park in Kirkwood, Missouri. The balls for this match were the very rare Mizzou Official Tennis Balls obtained after a sustained effort by the Forgotten Courts team. Balls were opened and a quick warm up ensued. The balls bounced pretty true although the plastic could make a flat ball skid or a ball with spin bounce high or stop short. There was one tree overhanging the court in the rear corner and we declared any ball that hit that tree in the air would be in play.
Scott and Stan won the racket spin and elected to serve. Scott started off and after four deuces was finally broken when the speedy Ben turned defense into offense by retrieving a lob over his head. Santi served next and came out firing with some tough serves and won his first game at love for a 2-0 lead. Stan served next and was able to hold finishing off the game with an out wide ace to Ben. Scott and Stan began to get some momentum and reeled off the next four game in a row for a 5-2 lead. An easy set for the bloggers looked to be in the cards.
Santi and Ben were not of that same mindset and began to mount a serious comeback winning three games in a row to get to 5-5. Stan held for 6-5 by hitting an out wide ace and a couple of great droppers and then Ben held to take it to a tiebreaker. The tiebreaker was all Scott and Stan as they stormed out to a 5-0 lead and closed it out 7-2.
With rain clouds closing in the second set was quickly started. Santi and Ben sprinted out to a 1-0 lead as Santi served a love game. At 2-1 on game point for Ben and Santi the craziest point of the match was played. Stan served to Santi who hit a weak return to Scott who hit an overhead to Ben’s Corner. Ben hit it back to Scott who hit another overhead to Santi’s corner who hit back to Scott who hit a volley up the middle which Ben retrieved. Then a drop shot to Santi….. on and on until the 9th ball to Scott who netted the ball – 3-1 Santi and Ben. Scott and Stan brought it back to 3-3 and it began to drizzle. We all agreed to play a 7 point tiebreaker for the set and just a couple points in we had to abandon that plan as the clouds opened up. We do some crazy stuff but playing on wet plastic is not one of those things.
So…. who won? The verdict is too close to call and another match will have to be played at another nearby forgotten court we spotted while we were there.
This court has a rating of 10 for location. Quiet and secluded makes for some great tennis. The court’s condition was really pretty good. We will give it an 8 with the only issues being the overhanging tree and a high net with no strap. The average for this court is 9 if you can find it!
After the match we headed over to a local breakfast hotspot called The Wolf for some great fun catching up.
