One of the best public tennis courts for night tennis in the Bay Area, but with a huge drawback!…read more
The park is designed for athletic play for junior high and older persons. There is a playground, basketball courts, and swimming pool at adjacent Sunnyvale Middle School (SMS), but are not open to the public. The par course and quarter mile sand track are open to the public, but often used by SMS kids during PE classes.
The six lighted tennis courts, have windscreens, partitions, benches, bleachers for waiting players, and water fountains. One hour maximum play when others are waiting, with the court timing boards designating the start and stop times. Of course if nobody is waiting, players will adjust the start and stop times to their advantage!
SMS holds tennis activities on these courts every weekday, when school is in session -summer school is now in session.
This week courts 1-5 are used for SMS tennis 9am-1pm every weekday. And you don't want to be on court 6 when lessons are in progress, with beginners hitting balls rolling down from court 5, interrupting your match every few moments.
Parking at night can be difficult, as the courts are adjacent to an apartment complex across the street. And when the adjacent soccer field
is in use, an errant soccer ball sometimes comes over the tall fence onto the court in the middle of play. Heads Up!
Also the bathrooms are located a good 150 yards on the opposite side of the baseball diamond and field.
The soccer field directly north of the courts means that the winds blow freely without obstacles from the northwest in the late afternoons and early evenings.
From late October until mid March, during standard time, if you want to play tennis after work on weekdays, you have to play under the lights.
The court lights are along the far edges and partitions, with rectangular lights looking straight down. These lights have more lighting and a minimum of glare, when tossing your ball up to serve, compared to the circular tower lights at Sunnyvale Tennis Center.
The court lights are better than Sunnyvale Tennis Center, let alone Fremont High School or Homestead High School. The lights are so good here, that USTA leagues play here this week on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 7-10pm.
The 100 odd USTA league teams based at the 16 court Sunnyvale Tennis Center are typically scheduled to play one home match at Mango Park, using 5 of the 6 courts.
The only way to find out which courts are in use for league or lessons is to look at the weekly permit sheet posted next to the courts. And you disgruntled tennis hackers can't easily tear down the sign, as it is in a vandal resistant wooden casing protected by heavy plastic!