A noted tennis coach in Bedford Stuyvesant has to seek new grounds after losing her concession for the courts she mastered over the last five years.
Longtime resident Frances Ferdinand has been running her tennis program, High-Quality (HQ) Tennis, at the Jackie Robinson Park Playground since 2021. The NCAA-ranked player, who once trained in Prospect Park under another known Bed-Stuy coach, Mario Bonelli, even worked on turning the park into a place for community gatherings during the pandemic.
And now, another bidder won this year's concession through the city Department of Parks and Recreation. Ferdinand said she had hoped she could have worked it out with the Parks Deptartment, but to no avail.
"We have to leave," she said. "They made their decision and it didn't involve the community."
The Parks Department said the concessions exist because tennis lessons are a paid-for service in a public park; the same would happen to other sports such as basketball and baseball.
However, at the Jackie Robinson Park Playground, a permit to teach tennis applies to only one of the four tennis courts; the other two can be for casual tennis use. According to Chris Clark, a press officer at the Parks Department, paid tennis instruction without a permit is not allowed.
"To ensure fairness, public concessions are awarded through a competitive bidding process," said Clark. "Here, the tennis concessions were solicited via a Request for Bids. Pursuant to City rules, Parks is required to award concessions solicited via Requests for Bids to the highest fee offer from a responsive and responsible bidder."
Omar Durrani, who teaches tennis around the city, including at McCarren Park, was the concession winner, according to the Parks Department.
"Maybe this guy did his research," she said. "I don't know if there's a cap. It goes to the highest bidder and it's a blind bid."
Durrani did not respond to BK Reader's multiple requests for an interview.
As Ferdinand enters HQ Tennis' next stage, she reflects on the impact she made on the park and the surrounding neighborhood. When she first got the concession, the courts were underused and cracked. She said she worked with the Department of Environmental Protection on a project that now allows for excess stormwater to be absorbed into the ground below.
In 2021, as summer was approaching Bed-Stuy amidst increasing gun violence, Ferdinand was one of the fundraisers who helped raise $11,000 to turn the park into a "community haven" where residents could mingle with each other while playing tennis in an Open Courts structure.
She also arranged for tennis scholarships to be created and for Malcolm X Boulevard to be beautified. Finally, Ferdinand arranged for official tournaments for local, young tennis players that got a good turnout.
For her, running the tennis program at the Jackie Robinson Park Playground made the public park shine for locals again.
"This is their space," she said. "People walk by and ask, 'Can I play?'"'
As her business is now forced to find a new home, Ferdinand is concerned whether the children from low-income families can afford the new program.
"Tennis is a beast," she said. "You pay for tournaments, you pay for travel. There's not a lot of tournaments in New York."
Despite this setback, Ferdinand said she is not done with HQ Tennis.
"We're a 501(c)3 so we're not going to abandon the community," Ferdinand said. "We'll just switch gears and still offer the program. Maybe there will be a new concession. We'll work it out."
