Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports in the country. With its growing popularity, Fancyburg and Thompson Parks are becoming destinations for the game, where you can find pickleball lines on our tennis courts and portable pickleball nets setup. The growth of the sport combined with the popularity of tennis in our community has created quite a demand for court time at our hard tennis courts. To aide in user experience, we’ve introduced a new racket reservation system to help you plan your game time more efficiently.

To reserve your spot, use the paddle rack system to place your paddle in the furthest spot to the left that’s available. The paddle to the very most left will be next up to play. It’s that simple! This new system ensures a fair and organized way to enjoy your time on the court.

The City offers four tennis courts at each park overlaid with eight lined pickleball courts in addition to four pickleball net systems on wheels. These facilities are free to the public for dual use year-round on a first-come, first-served basis seven days a week from dawn to dusk to both tennis and pickleball players.

To ensure cooperative use and access to all, the City asks players to please adhere to the following court rules:

• Limit play to 90 minutes if others are waiting.
• When all courts are in use, players should utilize the racket/paddle rack (see instructions below) to indicate they would like to take over the next available court.
• Tennis play should primarily take place on the east side of the Thompson courts/south side of the Fancyburg courts. Pickleball play should primarily take place on the west side of the Thompson courts/north side of the Fancyburg courts, unless full court use prohibits this. This helps protect the courts and the pickleball net systems from damage while moving.
• Limit moving the City’s pickleball net systems and take care when moving them. Carefully engaging or disengaging the wheels will help prevent damage to the courts.
• Players should attempt to consolidate any pickleball play on either side of a tennis court using the pickleball net systems, if available, to maximize space and allow opportunity for tennis play on a full tennis court.
• The City’s Parks & Rec sponsored programs have priority use of the courts. Reservations for programs on the courts can be viewed here.
• Private instruction for pay is prohibited without the advance written approval of the City of Upper Arlington.
• Use at your own risk.

Racket/Paddle Rack Instructions

• Waiting players should place their racket/paddle in the first available opening of the paddle rack from left-to-right, to the right of the sliding dial.
• The paddle/racket in the slot to the right of the dial is “up next.” Slide the dial to the right as players remove their paddles/rackets. Once a paddle/racket is removed from the far right, slide the dial back to the far left to start over again in left-to-right order.

One additional note:

• We encourage any individual players looking for others to play with join our open play pickleball programming. Check those out here.