Talking Tennis: Part 1

For a city that prides itself on outdoor activities, the options to play tennis in Duluth are extremely limited."There's nothing between Cloquet and West Duluth, which is what? 20 miles. Wheeler is in horrible shape,” exclaims Eve Gross, former Denfeld tennis coach. Sixteen–year old Michael Chelseth, a junior at Duluth East High School, recognized a problem. "There's really a need for courts in Lakeside, and there are a lot of people that play tennis that live in lakeside,” he explained. And he chose to take action. "I was just thinking about my every day journey to Longview during the summer. It was a ways away, and sometimes the courts would be full because they're really nice courts and there's only 6 of them. So I went to the Parks and Rec committee and I asked them about a few locations that I thought in Lakeside could work for tennis courts. But they told me that there was already a plan that existed. The plan had passed back in 2012, for Washington Square that included a tennis court. And when I came in, there was no one working on it, so I thought I'd take up this project." But, as it turns out, Michael isn't the first person to try and initiate change."I used to coach at Denfeld for 6 years. I was the one trying to get the courts fixed." From 2003 to 2007, Eve graves worked to improve the tennis community in Duluth."I was coaching at Wheeler and we had a ditch, and we didn't have a fence, and we had cracks, and we had foliage growing through and all this stuff, and for four years I tried to at least get a fence," Eve illustrated. After 4 years, and not much to show for her efforts, Eve gave up. Until 6 years later, when she ran into Michael at a City Council meeting. "I was like 'oh my gosh, he's doing exactly what I was trying to do,'" Eve exclaimed. As expected, she had plenty of advice to lend. "I talked to him, and I said 'you know, it'd be great if you did the whole city instead of just one area.'" So Michael decided to widen his original plan from just building one tennis court in Lakeside, to renovating and maintaining all the run–down courts throughout the city. "With Duluth tennis, we're trying to get everyone involved," explained Michael. "Showing the city that there is support for this out there, and we have a lot of courts around, but they're not in good shape at all." The exception being the six courts at Longview, where the boys and girls tennis teams at East play their matches. "Longview's courts are the only courts in the city up to tournament standards," said Michael. But Longview may actually be what is stealing the attention from all other courts in Duluth. "Duluth Friends of Tennis, is an organization that tries to upkeep Longview's courts." Michael old us. "They get money from all their memberships.""When you go to USTA, the United States Tennis Association, they think that Longview Friends of Tennis is it," Eve continued. "And so they think, 'Okay, we're fine, Duluth has courts.' They don't really look at everything else." And the Duluth Tennis Organization is working to raise awareness for all the courts that have been neglected. "As Duluth Tennis, we're focused on all the other courts that don't have anyone paying special attention to them right now," said Michael. "So all these other public courts are out there, but the city hasn't put any money towards them because there's no one encouraging them to do anything right now." But Eve is hopeful that Michael's battle will end with more success than hers. "They'll talk to Michael now, and they'll see how bad it is. I mean the whole city.""There is a large tennis community out in Duluth, but they just need to get out and be active right now," emphasized Michael. As the leader of the Duluth Tennis Organization, Michael believes now is the time to break ground with this campaign.