Grab a Racquet: Where to Play Tennis and Pickleball in Our Region
- Visit North Central
by Ann Gagliardi
Those in North Central Massachusetts with a hankering for hitting a ball around on a court with friends are in luck. The region has no shortage of tennis and pickleball facilities.
Tennis has a long history here. Princeton, for example, hosts the Chandler Bullock Memorial Labor Day Tennis Tournament, started in 1912 and believed to be the longest-running private tennis tournament in the United States. Open to current and former Princeton residents and family members aged fifteen and up, the Bullock doubles tournament takes place over the course of a week on Princeton tennis courts. Officials randomly assign contestants to pairs. A team of volunteers organizes the tournament each year. Spectators and players alike take part in picnics and other social events scheduled around the matches.
According to data published by the United States Tennis Association, USTA, the number of people playing tennis has risen in the US each year for the last five years, jumping from2023 to 2024 by nearly two million people. While it’s not possible to give a precise count of how many of those people play in North Central Massachusetts, the area has many tennis courts.
Typing the name of any North Central Massachusetts town into the court locator feature on the USTA Play Tennis New England website lists a nearby tennis court for each of the twenty-seven towns of the region. The list includes many well-maintained public tennis courts in parks and at schools, some of them equipped with night lighting to extend play time. Sports clubs and private facilities such as New England Tennis Center and Orchard Hills Athletic Club (OHAC) in Lancaster, Pine Hill Club and Prince of Peace in Princeton, and Oak Hill Country Club in Fitchburg also host tennis courts.
The popularity of pickleball, a much younger ball sport, is also on the rise.
Some claim a rivalry between the two sports. Pickleball requires a smaller court than tennis with a smaller racquet and a ball made out of plastic.
Part of its popularity of pickleball owes to the fact of its accessibility to folks of different ages, abilities, and fitness levels.
“You don’t have to be as in shape to have fun playing it,” a friend said. It’s also a nice way to meet other people. “It has a very welcoming atmosphere on the courts—strangers of different ability levels are welcomed and folded into other games when the courts are packed,” she said. Another friend in her fifties confirmed, “I have bad knees. My very athletic teenage son and I enjoy playing pickleball together because I can navigate the smaller size of a pickleball court, and he can still smash the ball past me.”
Throughout North Central Massachusetts, pickleball players will find facilities including purpose-built courts and tennis courts with pickleball lines on the ground. In some cases, players must bring their own nets. Pickleball nets are lower and narrower than tennis nets
Indoor and private pickleball courts include Mount Fitness Center in Gardner; YMCAs in Athol, Winchendon, and Fitchburg; Regan Family Pickleball in Leominster; and Game On Sports and Performance Center in Fitchburg. The pickle heads app numbers among many such tools that allow users to locate courts and games by typing in the name of a town.
Who knows? It’s possible that in another hundred years, storied North Central Massachusetts pickleball tournaments will take their place alongside Princeton’s long-running tennis tournament as examples of enduring sporting events.
Tournament organizers combine fun and fundraising. Athol, for example, saw its first ever pickleball tournament in September 2025 organized by the recently formed Athol Pickleball Association. Forty players ranging in age from fifteen to eighty-five took part in the round-robin style event, which raised funds for upkeep of the courts at the tournament venue, Silver Lake.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much going on as far as pickleball and tennis are concerned in our region. And last but not least: if you’re here and looking for pickleball or tennis clothing or gear, try a well-stocked, locally-owned shop such as John’s Sports Shop in Gardner.
