Tennis courts’ demolition?

Egay Uy .

THE Nazareth Tennis Club playground, i.e., the tennis courts, are reportedly under threat of being demolished and replaced with a four-storey building by the barangay government of Nazareth.

The move was reportedly communicated already, albeit informally, to the tennis club that is based in the Barangay Nazareth tennis courts.

As appearing in Facebook posts and comments, the proposed project seems to be opposed by the tennis players, or the tennis club itself, because of several reasons, among which is that the tennis club has caused the production of national and international tennis talents both as players and as coaches. Names like Alerre, Melendez, Alcantara, Talatala, and several others, always ring bells.

Besides, the tennis courts have provided livelihood to several residents in the area. We will note that up to today, pulot boys, volley boys, and even tutors come from the vicinity of the tennis courts.

I myself learned to volley my first tennis balls in those courts. With Fidel Talatala Jr. whom we fondly call Dingo, and Oscar “Bebot” Talatala, whose Anak-Baryo adopted name is Freddie, took pains in literally dragging us to those courts and painstakingly took turns returning our wayward balls.

The Nazareth tennis courts have already become a landmark in Barangay Nazareth. It has become synonymous with “barrio hall” of yore. That area in the barangay has become the convergence area of the barangay youth.

Aside from learning our first strokes of the game of tennis, we also used to play basketball in the open basketball courts there. The Anak-Baryo often participated in pre-fiesta barangay tournaments even as we often lost to the bigger and better guys.

While I now reside in another barangay, my memories of Barangay Nazareth where our ancestral home is located, still lingers. The information on the demolition of the tennis courts had come as a sad note. Part of my Nazareth roots will be dismembered, so it seems.

That Barangay Nazareth has been part of my childhood cannot be overemphasized. It was in that barangay where I met my ex-girlfriend, my ex-princess (now my wife and my queen), Juliet Inovero. It was in that barangay where I grew up amid the adversities of life which I managed to parry and conquer.

It for these reasons, and several others more, that I find interest in the move to replace the barangay tennis courts with a building, which I hope will be re-thought by the proponents.