‘Their own personal country club': Battle over S.F. park's tennis courts reaches boiling point

In theory, San Francisco's Rossi Park should be a tennis utopia on weekends. Located in the bustling heart of the Richmond district, the park keeps two of its three courts free and open to anyone, with the third governed by a reservation system.

Officials imagined scenes of people lining up and patiently waiting their turns, chatting with neighbors as they listened to the metronomic thwack of tennis balls on cushioned asphalt. Such an idea, though captivating, appears to be illusory.

Recently, complaints have erupted online from tennis players who say they can't access the Rossi courts because a large, privately run group with dues-paying members has orchestrated what one critic described as a "hostile takeover."

A few years ago the Rossi Racquet Club, which has no official relationship with the city, started organizing doubles matches and commandeering between two and three courts on Saturday and Sunday mornings. While Recreation and Parks staff ask that people generally limit themselves to one set, the club bypassed this rule, detractors say, by rotating matches among its own members.

When neighborhood residents show up with their rackets, they say that members of the Racquet Club refuse to move, insisting that outsiders either join the group or potentially wait hours to play.

"They are gatekeeping and not allowing access to publicly available spaces during open hours," a complainant wrote in a report to the city's 311 call center. It accused the group of putting carabiner locks on the gates to block outsiders.

"They turned away a couple (University of San Francisco) players by telling them that this is a closed court for organized play," the complaint said.

Racquet Club leader Chad Moore did not respond to two emails from the Chronicle seeking comment.

"Gatekeeping" is not uncommon in San Francisco's public fields and sports areas, and it has led to disputes over turf that sometimes go viral. Twelve years ago, a confrontation between tech workers and teens over rights to play on a Mission soccer field came to symbolize a larger debate over gentrification. Tensions have also simmered between the tennis and pickleball communities, whose players typically compete for the same space. The Rossi courts have in the past been a battlefront for tennis-pickleball spats, with six thefts of pickleball nets documented, and at least one net slashed.

The intra-tennis fight sparked by the Racquet Club could be seen as the latest chapter in an ongoing struggle to make public space more inclusive, and encourage people to cooperate. Yet it's also blown up in a more public fashion than other conflicts over courts or fields, owing largely to the city's social media culture. A thread published this week on the San Francisco subReddit accused the Rossi group of functioning as a "private cabal" and "treating these public parks as their own personal country club."

Spokespeople for Recreation and Parks told the Chronicle they are looking into the matter.

"Our rules are clear," wrote Tamara Barak Aparton, the department's deputy director of communications and public affairs. "Our courts are for everyone."

According to the Reddit thread and two emails submitted to Recreation and Parks over the weekend, the Rossi Racquet Club charges membership fees for anyone seeking to join the group and use what is supposed to be city property. The Racquet Club locked its website shortly after the Reddit thread surfaced, but a search of archived pages shows a suggested price of $5 for each Meetup event, and $250 for a yearly membership. As of Tuesday the Racquet Club home page displayed a chain-link fence with a padlock and the Racquet Club logo, along with a box to type in a password for access.

Written exchanges between Moore and Recreation and Parks staff last year suggest the Racquet Club has been an ongoing source of tennis-court discord. However, Moore contended that his club is inclusive and that he lets everyone participate.

"We have done nothing wrong, illegal or unwelcoming. We always play fair for ALL!!" Moore wrote in a January 2025 email to Jessica Hing, property manager for Recreation and Parks. Hing had written to Moore and two other representatives of the Racquet Club, noting that her department had received a note expressing concerns that "Rossi tennis courts 1 & 2 have not been as welcoming as we all understood them to be."

Hing sent Moore a follow-up email that April, after Recreation and Parks received additional complaints about the Racquet Club. Up until then, the department had waived the reservation system for its third court on Saturday mornings, primarily to accommodate the club's continuous doubles matches. With the escalating pushback, parks officials decided they would no longer hold that court open.

"It is our expectation that you and your group will not reserve it for your group play and that others will have access," Hing wrote to Moore. Aparton said the department is investigating the recent allegations and could take a variety of actions, including making all the courts reservation-only or dispatching a ranger to stand out there and educate people.

This week's Reddit thread on the Racquet Club quickly ricocheted through San Francisco's tennis community. Couples who were playing at the mostly-empty Rossi courts on Monday said they had heard about the dustup.

"Someone had recommended I join the club," said Inga Lim, who was wiping sweat off her brow after an intense singles match. Lim shrugged. Although she had seen the criticism on Reddit, she had never interacted with the meetup group. She tends to play on weekdays to avoid crowds.

On the adjacent court, Kimberly Kim sat on a bench, gently resting a racket against her knees. Kim characterized herself as a member of the Rossi Racquet Club, and defended its practices.

"We welcome everybody," she said with an expansive smile.

Pickleball players who had reserved another Rossi court on Monday said they had no knowledge of the Racquet Club, though several were amused to hear about a spat between tennis players. After all, Rossi has long served as a sort of feudal territory where tennis and pickleball collide. Even as Rec and Park officials alleviated much of that strife by imposing a reservation system, they apparently could not stop the meetup group from taking over.

"Well, I don't come here on weekends," said Jeff Nesbit, a former tennis player who defected to pickleball a few years ago. "I supposed there is confusion," he mused, "on the part of people who show up, and believe the courts should be free."

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