2023 USTA Eastern Organization of the Year: Sedgwick Farm Tennis Club

Sedgwick Farm Tennis Club has been named USTA Eastern’s 2023 Member Organization of the Year for its long record of service to the Syracuse tennis community.

The 126-year-old organization—which boasts the only outdoor red clay tennis courts in central New York—is a bustling bastion of activity for local tennis aficionados each summer, hosting tournaments, clinics, camps, USTA League play and even a performance from locally-based musicians on its premises. Despite this robust abundance of offerings, the facility is very much a modest operation. In coordination with two part-time staffers and a few pros who lead the programming, a dedicated group of volunteers largely handle the management and maintenance of the club during the season, “doing everything,” notes Sedgwick Farm board president Larry Bousquet, “from spreading salt on the courts to rolling the courts to repairing the roller.” All members who step onto the red clay, he adds, are required to sweep up their ball marks once the last point is played.

Over the years, many tennis notables left their footprints in the Sedgwick Farm clay. Karel Koželuh and Bill Tilden played each other at the venue in 1931 when they were the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the world. (General admission to that event cost $1.) Frank Shields, another world No. 2 player (and the grandfather of Brooke Shields), competed on the club’s courts. Don Budge, the first person to win all four Grand Slam tournaments in a year, taught a clinic there in the 1960s, and Jimmy Arias—a 1983 US Open semifinalist and perhaps the best player to ever come out of upstate N.Y.—also laced up his tennis sneakers at the location. So revered has the club been that Pete Sampras sent congratulations when Sedgwick Farm celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1997.

As impressive and expansive as the club’s past is, Sedgwick Farm has its eyes firmly fixed on the future. In the last few years, the facility has upgraded an antiquated sprinkler system and invested in high-tech court demarcation lines from Europe that don’t need to be nailed down into the clay. But beyond the physical maintenance of the surface, organization leaders are particularly passionate about creating more tennis opportunities and bringing new players into their community. Bousquet—who in his youth grew up just blocks from the courts—served as the facility’s clubhouse manager during his summers away from college in the mid to late 1970s when the sport was all the rage; today, he’d like to recapture some of that fervor.

“What we’re really trying to do is build our membership,” Bousquet says. “And we also want to provide access to the sport to kids who might not otherwise have access.”

Bousquet knows firsthand what you can gain from those experiences in the sport. His own family history with Sedgwick Farm dates back generations. As a child he actually participated in the clinic led by Budge.

“It's really the friendships you make,” Bousquet says. “That's the core of it. It's meeting people that you might not otherwise meet, learning about them and making connections that extend beyond tennis. Developing those relationships has been the best thing that has come out of it.”

And as Sedgwick Farm closes in on its 130th anniversary in the next couple years, Bousquet hopes he can help others to forge those connections as well.

“Tennis shouldn't be something that's exclusive,” he says. “It's such a wonderful game and a game you can play your whole life. Everyone should have the opportunity to play it. One thing that’s changed about our club is that there used to be a sign out front that said ‘Members only’. Now the sign says ‘New members welcome.’”