At CityView Racquet Club, high above Long Island City, members can play a few games of tennis or squash, then relax in the sauna or grab a bite prepared by the in-house chef. They can bump into pros like Andy Roddick and have their racquet strung by the same master. And they can use the urinal – not just any urinal, but one that sports stunning eye-level views of that other borough beyond the East River.
“Our service is second to none,” said Joe Shabot, an owner of the 32nd Place establishment, which opened in April of 2008. “There’s service at every stage here.”
On a recent tour of the 90,000 square-foot penthouse, Shabot pointed out accoutrements like indoor and outdoor party spaces, a spa with four treatment rooms, two tennis bubbles with seven HAR-TRU – synthetic clay – courts, four squash courts, the sauna with a window onto Manhattan, steam room, fitness club and electronic-entry lockers.
In a bathroom in the men’s locker room, peering out at that famous skyline, Shabot smiled with pride. “City views wherever you can go,” he said softly, nodding his head.
But above all, CityView is serious about its tennis, and there is no time more important, Shabot said, than during the U.S. Open when “the spotlight of the tennis world is on New York.”
“It creates some excitement and gets them [members] in the mood again,” he said, “and CityView is waiting.”
In late August at CityView, the anticipation of New York’s Grand Slam tennis tournament is perhaps felt nowhere as much as in the club’s pro shop.
“It’s already started for us,” said Roman Prokes, the owner of Manhattan-based RPNY Tennis, and the pro shop’s proprietor and master stringer.
Prokes said he has strung racquets for “the U.S. Davis Cup team, all the masters, all the Grand Slams,” and for the past five years he and RPNY have organized and trained a U.S. Open stringing team for Wilson, the official stringer of the tournament.
As of Monday, August 24, after just three days of stringing, Prokes and his 20-member Wilson Stringing Team had already completed 500 racquets for the Open. Prokes estimates that 98 percent of the racquets used over the course of the two-week tournament will have been strung by his team – using ergonomically correct $6,000 Wilson machines set up at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
But there is much more to his job than simply stringing, Prokes explained.
Each racquet may take just 20 minutes to complete, but like a golf caddy reads a green, Prokes and his team monitor the forecast, evaluate player performance, scrutinize how the court is playing and customize racquet tensions accordingly.
“The [professional] players, by now, they know us and they trust us and that’s how all this comes into play,” Prokes said. “We bring that to the club level where everybody benefits form it. The people are treated just like we would treat Agassi or Roddick – there is no difference.”
At CityView, much like at the USTA Center in the professional tennis world, the club staff is bracing for an influx of tennis players and fans come tournament time. The club’s 460 members, who pay for membership packages starting at around $1,800, will gather for Open watching parties and special club tournaments. They will dissect the Open in CityView’s spa and lounges and soak in the excitement of the final Grand Slam of the year.
After all, as Prokes says, the tournament is like no other.
“The U.S. Open is incredibly unique because it has by far the most energy,” he explained. “It’s like New York – it reflects the city.”
