Did you know that tennis got a bailout from the Federal government? Well not the professional tours, but in Bozeman, Montana, the city used some of its stimulus money to repair aging hard courts by paying for new ones with a rubberized surface.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (D), didn’t find this appropriate and lashed out at Republicans in the U.S. Senate for not allowing the state government in Montana the ability to control how and where such money is used by each city. Republicans countered by saying that they felt the current system of allowing cities complete jurisdiction in how they spend their share of current funding is fair.
Read more about the issue here.
Whether you agree or disagree with how the money was spent, what caught my eye was the fact that the city decided, not to resurface the hard courts, but go with the new rubber surface for its city park courts. Could rubber courts in America be the start of a new trend ala the current surfaces used for the Australian Open? Time will tell.
Adjusting the Net 