San Francisco imposes new rules to thwart tennis ‘cabal' at park
San Francisco park officials are rolling out a new reservation system at the Rossi Park tennis courts after complaints that a private group has hogged the facilities on weekends.
Starting next Saturday, players can book time slots between 7:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. at the first and second courts, which were formerly available on a first-come, first-served basis. The third court is already reservation-only. Fees are $5 an hour, the same rate applied to other public courts in the city. A spokesperson for the recreation and park department described this system as a pilot, though it has no specified end date.
Signs posted at the Inner Richmond park explain this new protocol and ascribe it to "community requests to ensure access to all." Left unmentioned is the tennis court drama that blew up last month, when social media users started railing about a group that commandeered the venue on weekend mornings, rotating doubles matches among its own members.
The Rossi Racquet Club, which has no relationship with the city, charged $250 for yearly memberships and a suggested fee of $5 per session, according to archived pages of its website. That website is now password-protected.
Racquet club leader Chad Moore did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Member Kimberly Kim told the Chronicle in May that the club welcomes everyone to join. But other tennis players say the group used unfair "gatekeeping" tactics. A 311 complaint submitted to the park department last year described an incident in which "a group of about 10 players" had locked the gates of the first two courts with carabiners to bar other people from entering.
Such alleged behavior inspired a viral Reddit thread that accused the Rossi group of functioning as a "private cabal" and "treating these public parks as their own personal country club."
With the new enforced court-sharing, tennis players hope Rossi will become the communal space it was always intended to be: a place where anyone can thwack a little green ball on cushioned asphalt.
Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.
This story was originally published June 19, 2026 at 10:40 AM.