New Santa Fe tennis club will feature legends Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi at grand opening.
Officials at the Forked Lightning Racquet Club — a new, multimillion-dollar tennis and pickleball facility being built at 2398 Brenner Way between the Rodeo de Santa Fe grounds and the Genoveva Chavez Community Center — don’t yet know when the club will open its doors.
But they are planning a grand opening event Oct. 17 and 18 that will feature several of the better-known names in tennis. Among those scheduled to take part in the festivities are Germany’s Steffi Graf, winner of 22 Grand Slam events, and American Andre Agassi, who won eight Grand Slam titles. Also scheduled to appear are brothers Bob and Mike Bryan — considered one of the great doubles teams in the history of the sport — and the recently retired CoCo Vandeweghe, a 2018 U.S. Open champion in doubles.
Teel Lawler-Flores, the club’s director of membership and events, said Forked Lightning officials are hoping to have a soft opening for the facility by the end of September. The tennis and pickleball courts under the club’s 55,000-square-foot inflatable dome were being painted last week, she said, while landscaping on the property also is underway.
“Everything is coming along,” she said, adding the club already has reached 80% of its membership goal.
