Montauk Tennis returns to Montauk Downs for its 10th season

Montauk Tennis is settling into Montauk Downs for a 10th season, and the return says as much about continuity as it does about courts. The club now runs the six Har-Tru clay courts at Montauk Downs State Park, a public setting that gives Montauk tennis its familiar summer rhythm from mid-May through October.

That schedule matters in a town where court access rises and falls with the season. New York State Parks says the Montauk Downs courts operate daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day, placing tennis inside the larger park complex that also includes a championship-length golf course, a driving range, a main pool and a wading pool. The club’s presence there is not a standalone resort amenity, but part of a public-park system that shapes when and how the local game can be played.

The current setup also reflects a recent lease history that pushed the operation between two East End sites. Montauk Tennis notes that it won the Montauk Downs lease in 2017, lost the site in 2022, moved activity to Hither Hills Racquet Club, and later returned when the next lease holder forfeited the lease. That kind of movement has not broken the tennis culture so much as defined it. The organization’s membership page says members can use both Hither Hills and Montauk Downs, which turns the club into a two-venue presence rather than a single-court operation.

Hither Hills became the fallback that kept the program alive. The club sits in the dunes along the Napeague Stretch between Amagansett and Montauk, and its facilities include four Har-Tru courts and one artificial-grass court. Gurney’s describes the club as a nearby option with five Har-Tru courts, court rentals, private lessons and clinics. That overlap gives Montauk players a practical lane to keep playing even when the lease or venue changes.

The staffing story is part of the club’s identity, too. Montauk Tennis presents the operation as a close-knit group of returning and new coaches, with a homegrown feel rooted in the founder’s childhood ties to Montauk. The result is a club that reads less like a polished private enclave and more like a persistent local institution, one that has kept its courts busy by staying tied to the same community even as the address has shifted. In Montauk, that kind of continuity is the story.