Tennis activist still dreams of complex

Having spent a lifetime chasing adventure, molding dreams and indulging whimsy, Jeanette Marcus is not one for tolerating disappointment.

Not that she hasn't experienced her share of setbacks. But if there's anything a relentless attacking of life has taught this entrepreneurial world traveler, land broker, dog lover, tennis activist, engineer, wildlife photographer's wife and sun-browned stepmother of three, it's that the only permanent failure is the failure to try.

That would explain Marcus' spicy collection of jobs, from University of South Florida paralegal to canine caterer and pooch party organizer to marketing husband Stuart Marcus' gallery of wildlife photography.

The one constant? Tennis. When she's not playing, teaching or watching, she's advocating for it. Kids hanging out at parks in east Pasco County are candidates for showers of slightly used balls that collect in boxes at Lake Jovita, where Marcus is an assistant tennis director, and secondhand racquets.

Seniors can count on Marcus to help organize unofficial leagues. And she names as her very favorite event of the sporting calendar the springtime Sony Ericsson championships in Miami, a celebrity-encrusted fortnight that attracts tennis' biggest names.

She's even persuaded her husband to put in a court on the western flank of their new house. A hands-on kind of guy, Stuart enlisted the help of a friend, Dave Musselman, on Friday as the project approached its conclusion.

All of which helps explain, when it seemed a while back Pasco and Saddlebrook Resort would partner in construction and operation of a regionally unique tennis complex crowned by a 5,000-seat stadium, Marcus approached euphoria.

In Pasco, tennis' tough road

Then the deal collapsed, each side blaming the other, and delight turned to lamentation. "I lost my dream," Marcus says.

In Pasco, tennis exists just below the radar. Public courts suffer neglect. Private clubs can be expensive. Youngsters lack instruction. Adults play in loosely affiliated groups of their own organizing.

One possible remedy - the nascent New Port Richey-based Pasco County Tennis Foundation - exists, so far, largely in theory.

But Marcus and her passionate associates - a handful of whom joined her Friday morning at the Marcus compound in Pasco's hilly heartland - want more than hopeful beginnings.

Ask Betty Rendleman, 80 going on 55, the vivacious evidence of tennis' rejuvenating qualities. She was brought up on golf, her father's companion. "Golf takes too long," Rendleman says. Soon after she arrived in Zephyrhills 35 years ago, someone stuck a racquet in her hand. The addiction was swift and complete. Tennis was a fast, sociable workout.

"Two hours, three sets," she says. "You meet new people and you can play three, four nights a week."

Racquet War a showcase?

Lutz native and Lake Jovita resident Janet Anderson, 64, praises tennis for taking her mind off work and the arthritis in her spine. Jo Cerny, 71, a Zephyr Park fixture, fondly remembers rubbing elbows with top women's players when Saddlebrook hosted the Light n' Lively Doubles and her late husband, Paul Cerny, was a tournament photographer.

All agree: Pasco would have surged as both a destination and a local inspiration had the tennis complex been built. But tourist tax dollars have been obligated to a cookie-cutter softball complex that will require no special expertise, or contacts, to replicate in the next county over.

Is there another path? Marcus thinks so. To her, Saddlebrook's partnership with French sports agency Lagardére, aggressively expanding its tennis representation and American presence, raises delicious possibilities of a privately funded complex.

A gal can dream.

To that possible end, Marcus is pushing news of next weekend's Racquet War at Saddlebrook, the fourth and final stop of the 2010 tour, described by the Memphis, Tenn.-based organizers as "a competitive tennis tour for adults" blending "high quality competition" with "ultimate class."

Players compete within their National Tennis Rating Program class, from 2.5 to open, in singles, doubles and/or mixed doubles. They pay an entry fee ($38 for the first tournament, $20 for subsequent events), and play for cash prizes.

By Friday, 115 players had registered; the deadline for entering is midnight Monday.

It may not be sanctioned by the U.S. Tennis Association (whose Open championship in New York reaches its midpoint this weekend), but Marcus is nonetheless fired up. Racquet War, she says, has a chance to showcase why Pasco, Saddlebrook and tennis are an ideal match worthy of somebody's major investment.