Middletown Residents Say Town Needs To Fix Tennis Courts ASAP

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — At the Monday night Middletown Township Committee meeting, many people asked the town when the long-promised renovations will be completed at the Tindall Park tennis courts and elsewhere.

"On Saturday we were on the courts, there wasn't one court that was open at Tindall. All the others were too dangerous to play at," said Port Monmouth resident Donna Blaze, a longtime member of the Middletown Tennis Association. "Bodman is a disaster, Lincroft is a disaster. Half of the courts at Tindall are dangerous to play on: They're cracked, they have weeds growing out of them. They're moldy. It would be really sad to have someone really get hurt over there."

Both Middletown high school tennis teams, but particularly North, practice on the town tennis courts. One part of the courts, in the shade, is mossy and slippery.

"These have to be the worst courts that any high school team plays in the entire county," continued Blaze. "I've been in Oceanport, they're gorgeous. Atlantic Highlands, they're gorgeous. It's really sad that Middletown, as populated as it is — I've been playing tennis for 55 years in Tindall and I think they've been fixed twice. It's sad."

Also, people have fallen due to cracks in the town tennis courts. Said a North High School tennis player of the courts at Tindall Park:

"I've fallen several times playing; it defeats the purpose of the sport and there is debris on the courts that could be cleaned up easily."

Another resident said "a lot of altercations" have broken out between tennis and pickleball players at the Tindall Park tennis courts.

Middletown is planning to re-surface all the tennis courts in town, replace the posts and replace the nets, repeated Mayor Tony Perry Monday night. But due to delays, the project is not supposed to go out to bid until the fall of 2023 and it remains unclear when the work will begin.

"I would assume by next year all the courts will be done," said Perry.

Middletown Township also plans to have two courts at Tindall that will be devoted to pickleball only. As previously reported on Patch, McMahon Park in North Middletown will become pickleball courts only.

Perry said the town of Middletown wants to have separate pickleball and tennis courts. There will no longer be "dual use" tennis/pickleball courts.

That is because tennis players and pickleball players have been arguing with each other.

That will leave 14 tennis courts open in Middletown.

But Middletown residents who play tennis say they have been asking for years now to have the town resurface the tennis courts — and it hasn't happened yet.

"For years, he’s promised me (and the dozens upon dozens of members of the Middletown Tennis Association), that the town had been awarded a grant and the tennis courts would be fixed," resident Denise Skelton told Patch in an email before the Township Committee meeting, referring to Perry.

"We are forced to go outside of our own town to play tennis on other town’s courts, rather than willingly submitting our members’ dues to secure the required permits to play on our own courts! It’s ridiculous. Every day and evening, the courts are packed full. We deserve safe tennis courts for all the money we pay in taxes."

North Middletown's McMahon Park Getting 6 Pickleball Courts (Jan. 2022)

Here is the most recent Middletown Township Committee meeting, July 17: