MSFF Tennis Tournament to be played on new surface

ELKINS – Competitors playing in this year’s Mountain State Forest Festival Tennis and Pickleball Tournament will be treated to a brand new surface on the courts at Davis & Elkins College.   

The tourney, which will take place on Saturday and Sunday this weekend, has 35 participants signed up to battle it out on the D&E campus at the Katherine S. Thomas Tennis Center, and at the pickleball courts at Elkins City Park. Action will get underway at approximately 8:30 a.m.    

“One of the first things to happen on the resurfaced courts is the Forest Festival Tournament,” Amrit Rayfield, director of Philanthropy at D&E College, told The Inter-Mountain. “Those courts have been going through a resurfacing and renovation process and they are ready to go. Those four courts have been in use for many, many years, with both the high school and college tennis teams practicing and playing on them.”   

The resurfacing and renovation of the four courts is part of a project at Davis & Elkins College that features the construction of two brand new courts next to the ones that already exist.     

“The new courts are constructed, but they are not surfaced and finished yet,” Rayfield said. “We have been in this expansion process now since July and we are excited to get it finished. It’s going to be nice to have six courts for the high school, college, and the community to use.”       

Rayfield said that most college tennis facilities typically have six to eight courts to play on, and with 26 players currently making up the D&E men’s and women’s tennis program, the two new courts were needed.   

“When you’re trying to practice that many players on four courts it’s kind of tough to do,” Rayfield said. “In the spring when you’re looking at high school boys and girls and college men and women, it’s hard to squeeze in practice time and matches with four courts. The addition is definitely going to help, and from a community standpoint, the new courts will help with events like we have this weekend.”   

The work is being done by LBI Sports. The two new courts are projected to be finished by mid October.     

“The fencing is done and the base surface is complete at the new courts,” Rayfield said. “A big part of this project was funded by a grant through the United State Tennis Association, but we also had some funds come in from private donors. But we are not finished raising funds for the project, because there are still many things we need to do to make the project complete, like doing some landscaping around it.”