Mt. Tabor Open, it all started at Wallace Park
Portland Tennis Courterly serves up an ace for Portland tennis fans and people who just want to have a picnic at the park
For the second year in a row, Juan Padilla held the men’s singles trophy aloft at the Mt. Tabor Open all-comers tennis tournament. On the video above, you can see Padilla’s stinging serve for yourself and how opponent Andrew Finkelman’s won this particular point with a hypersonic forehand.
Billed as “the highest-altitude slam,” the Mt. Tabor Open is also called “the fourth grand slam,” by the organizers and their acolytes. For the uninitiated, four grand slams currently exist in tennis: the French Open, Australian Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open. Apparently, Mt. Tabor Open’s marketing team brazenly scratched one from that list and inserted itself. Tyler Pell, of Portland Tennis Courterly, clears things up. “There are a few reasons it’s called the 4th grand slam. While not the original story, that it takes place on 4th of July weekend is now the leading theory.”
The action takes place in Mt. Tabor Park in Southeast Portland, a locale tournament organizers call Tennis City, USA.
The free-to-attend event happens at Mt. Tabor Park, where a blue-green reservoir serves as backdrop to the unimproved hard courts. Fans sit on blankets on the grass or behind a fence near the baseline on a bed of pine needles. It’s incredibly pleasant. Some pay attention, some just enjoy a picnic and try to understand the illusive math behind tennis scoring. We come to watch the best tennis Portland has to offer.
A toddler told me, “I’m going to get my soccer ball,” as she wobbled past the back court.
The men’s doubles final preceded the singles finals. A team wearing matching black togs and sponsored by an apparel brand called Taango Tennis from Austin, Texas, beat the local boys in a 10-point tiebreaker played in lieu of a third set. The Portland team dressed in a winning nonchalant style all their own.
The Mt. Tabor Open is sponsored by Tennis Courterly, a literary tennis magazine that just published its latest and biggest issue despite getting its funding cut from the Regional Arts and Culture Council. Tennis Courterly’s offices are in downtown Portland, where a tennis-adjacent bookclub is held in a historic building constructed of unreinforced masonry. A black tennis net sits in a jumble on the floor.
Tournament co-director Scott Korb is an ex-Northwest Portland resident. He and King started what was called Chapman Cup in Wallace Park in 2024. When the event outgrew the weeds in the cracks in the courts, the tourney decamped to the east side.
The book club just read “The Racquet,” an out-of-print book by Oregon poet George Hitchcock. Actually, just four chapters from a shared PDF were all that was required, because no one could get our hands on a copy of the book. But the downtown library has one copy a motivated person can read on premises during limited weekend hours. Sensing high demand to lift “The Racquet” from obscurity, Tennis Quarterly is pursuing the rights to reprint it in a new translation.
Mt. Tabor Open is serious tennis, but as should be clear by now, it’s also a send-up.
The chair umpire was a low-key man with a long beard known as Big Willie. A local tennis legend who fixes fences and benches, he was a little shaky on 10-point tie-breakers and why a 12-point tiebreaker is first to seven, win by two.
There were ball kids in green vests, the smallest of whom appeared to receive training from a big brother moments before the match got underway. She mastered rolling the ball on the outside line of the doubles alley quickly. There was music on changeovers between games and color commentary throughout the match by Tennis Courterly managing editor Jay Boss Rubin.
“We’ve got a seismologist from PSU in the box here with us today, and the chance of an earthquake is zero,” he murmured, reminding us that Mt. Tabor Park sits on a dormant volcano. When not calling matches Rubin works at NW Portland’s Escape from New York Pizza on mushroom and olive day.
A slightly altered version of Allen Ginsberg’s “America” was read between matches.
On Sunday, Padilla battled against Grant High School alum Andrew Finkelman, who was grinding out every point with deep passion and focus. I can’t quite say why he didn’t win. But Padilla was unflappable and calm. Originally from Florida, Padilla is head tennis coach at Vancouver Tennis Center.
But he lives in Tennis City, USA.
Love this.