In Sans Souci, you can get cheap tennis and green grass

Free tennis, anyone? With the Sony Ericsson Open returning to Miami in March, tennis madness and its requisite jet set will be taking over the town. They can afford it. But if you’re a young local person with nothing but the dream to play, where can you go?

Say hello to the anti-Open. There is no charge for the young people competing in the Clayton Feig Memorial Tennis Tournament in North Miami. Each August Steve Feig, father of Clayton Feig, sponsors Florida’s only free tournament sanctioned by the United States Tennis Association. The tournament, targeting underprivileged youth ages 11 to 18, memorializes his son, who died at the age of 18 from a mysterious syndrome known as Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy.

Until his death in 1993, Clayton Feig was a regular at the tennis complex, operated by the City of North Miami Parks and Recreation Department. In the fall of 2009, the city named the center’s clay court after him, and the Feig family donated $25,000 to keep the center running.

By now you might be scratching your head and asking: Where is this Mecca of tennis? The full title gives you some idea: the Penny Sugarman Tennis Center at Sans Souci. The most obvious landmark nearby is the Home Depot on Biscayne Boulevard, which can be seen from the courts.

Dedicated in 1976, the center is quite large, offering 12 hard courts, the one clay court, and two enclosed practice walls. City of North Miami residents pay $3.00 per hour while nonresidents are charged $5.50 for clay. The hard courts are $2.50 or $4.00 per hour. Private lessons are available along with various group lessons that keep costs down. There is even a tiny-tot group for the four-year-old set.

The entrance to the courts has attractive landscaping around a smallish pro shop. And it has bathrooms. You can also buy your tennis supplies and some snacks.

The center is definitely one of those best-kept secrets that, unlike the Miami Shores tennis center, is open to everyone. Most likely it primarily attracts locals and moms in-the-know. Afternoons are busy with families scurrying around while their budding superstars learn how to ace. In off-peak hours, plenty of courts remain open, and access does not seem to be a major problem.

While Fort Lauderdale was the staging ground for tennis legend Chris Evert, NoMi has yet to produce a major star. But there is hope. The tennis center’s claim to fame is that pro player Andy Roddick competed in the first Clayton Feig tournament at the age of 12. Everyone is wondering who will be next.

But a more immediate question comes to mind. While the kids are having fun whacking yellow balls, what are the nonplayers supposed to do? Fear not, for mere steps from the tennis center sits a cozy little park where you don’t need a racket.

Alfred Besade Park is a playground and patch of green directly behind the Home Depot. Just don’t plan on playing any sports here. A sign at the south entrance reads: “No Soccer-Baseball-Football Allowed.”

Perhaps 12-year-old boys can’t read, because they were playing banned sport number three when I visited one afternoon. There’s enough grass for playing catch, but not room for full-on games, so no enforcement is necessary.

The park does most things right within its limited space by offering a mix of open grass, a winding path, and plenty of playground equipment. But the park really excels in the arena of trash cans. There are cans at every turn, and most of the litter seems to make it inside. Alas, as in most parks around Miami, recycling is not offered.

The playground glistens with the flashy colors of a lavender dinosaur and a teal tube slide. Underfoot, a rubber entrance ramp onto the playground puts a spring in your step.

Near the park’s north entrance lies a large concrete square without anything on it or around it -- just a slab for no reason. At the opposite end, a similar slab is covered by a metal roof, and two picnic tables sit underneath. Although lacking charm, the pavilion still functions as a sun and rain shelter.

Some old-growth trees inhabit the park, and the native greenery is especially thick along the western fence. On the other side of the fence is a thin sidewalk where litter gathers. However, the park’s interior is mostly clean.

Heavy benches, common in several North Miami parks, deserve a mention for poor design, because they tend to pool water. These brown tripods have a slit in the back, but even the slightest tilt will prevent water from draining completely, as evidenced by the benches’ water stains. These three-legged monsters may be much sturdier than wood, but no one wants to sit in a puddle.

No one really knows about this small park, it seems, except for the neighbors and the film commission of Miami. In 2003 the park became the setting for an obscure, spooky movie called Baker’s Men. I think the director got lost on the way to Home Depot and settled on the path of least resistance.

A plaque reveals that the park was dedicated in 1986. It seems like a natural extension of the tennis center around the corner, which lacks trees and greenery in favor of courts, and the combination of the two makes the area worthwhile for the entire family.

So there you have it. In this densely populated area, there are some open spaces with a little green and a whole lot of courts painted blue.

In NoMi, it’s tennis, everyone!

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