The Point Loma/Cabrillo Tennis Club wants residents to know its court sports are thriving and new members are welcome.

Supporting its mission to promote fun and safe tennis and pickleball in Point Loma, the club maintains six tennis courts – four behind the fire station at 1049 Catalina Blvd., and two at Cabrillo Recreation Center at 3051 Cañon St., including lined pickleball courts.

“Our club has been around the longest (in Point Loma),” said club founder and current treasurer Mike Moser noting that, while comparatively small, Point Loma/Cabrillo offers an intimate setting for players at all skill levels.

“I would call us a neighborhood courts tennis club,” said the club’s president Gary Pergl. “Other tennis clubs went large with big programs and clubhouses and lots of formalized tennis instruction. We’re smaller. We’re there for the neighborhood.”

Point Loma/Cabrillo is a City-owned public tennis club operating under a special-use permit renewed periodically. Membership is $75 per year, per person. All membership fees go to maintaining the courts making sure they are tennis- and pickleball-ready.

The club started in the late 1970s after the passage of Proposition 13 in California, legislation that severely trimmed the property tax base supporting public facilities and programs. That forced the City of San Diego to relinquish many of its park and recreational services, including maintenance of public tennis courts.

Subsequently, the City offered to let neighborhood organizations take over the administration of the courts, rather than let them go completely unattended. At that point, Cabrillo Recreation Center teaching pro Robin Reedy approached Mike Moser about starting a tennis club to maintain the courts, thus creating Point Loma/Cabrillo. The club became a nonprofit public benefit corporation back in 1985. In 1988, the club applied for and received, federal tax exemption for the club proving it was nonprofit. In 1990, a retroactive state exemption was attained for the club.

Moser said that, while tennis is maintaining its popularity, pickleball has seen a rapid rise in demand.

“We had some aging tennis players who were having difficulty getting around the larger courts: They wanted to stick with a racket sport but wanted less running,” he noted. “Pickleball courts are one-sixth the size of tennis courts. So we draw up permanent lines on our tennis courts for pickleball.”

“We decided, back a couple of years ago before COVID, to promote pickleball down at our Cabrillo courts, as a large proportion of our members are pickleball players,” Pergl said. “It’s a great thing. I live close to the Cabrillo courts and go by there frequently and they are being used a lot. We’re happy that we can provide the facilities.”

Moser added that demand by its approximately 160 club members for court time is pretty time-specific. “It’s one of those things where people are active early mornings and late afternoons, before or after work, or in the middle of the day,” he said. “But there are a lot of times when those courts aren’t heavily used.”

Moser added raising funding to maintain facilities is always challenging. “With membership dues of $75 a year, you don’t raise a lot that way,” he said adding, “We’ve always had to go other places to get grants when we have to resurface courts about every eight to 10 years.”

Pergl said there is plenty of room to grow at Point Loma/Cabrillo Tennis Club. “We’d like to get new members, we can manage them,” he said adding, “there are lots of young people playing with their parents or getting lessons. We get quite a few people from Point Loma High School and from Point Loma Nazarene University.”

Looking ahead, Pergl said: “The future for us, we hope, is to remain more or less the way we are right now. We don’t want to be holding tournaments or special events. We’re meant for the people of the neighborhood.”

For more information, visit pointlomacabrillotennis.org.

Point Loma/Cabrillo Tennis Club will hold its annual membership meeting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, July 16 at the Fire Station Courts at 1049 Catalina Blvd. This is not a typical meeting. Come ready to play crazy-mixed-up-doubles. Challenge yourself hitting against a pro. Watch a pickleball demonstration and try it out. Many more activities are planned. Visit pointlomacabrillotennis.org for information.