Over its 33-year existence, the Mill Creek Tennis Club has had three owners.
Now, a tennis aficionado well known in Seattle as a coach and the man behind racquet sports retailer Avanti Sports, has purchased the club and has big plans to bring new life to the center.
“The dream was to have a tennis club by the time I was 45,” said Roger Mark. “I didn’t make it. So the new goal was to own a tennis club by the time I was 51.”
Mark is actually co-owner, with brother Byron.
Membership at the tennis club, located at 15505 Country Club Drive, has been lagging in recent years, Roger Mark said, and he and his brother hope their vision for the center will not only attract new members but bring existing members in more often.
“We pretty much took the keys and signed our lives away on Friday,” said general manager Matt Lattier, who lives in Mill Creek.
The brothers grew up playing on Seattle’s public tennis courts. Roger has been an assistant tennis coach for both men and women at the University of Washington and has coached professionally for 34 years.
Both are protégés of Amy Yee, a top northwest womens’ professional player and coach in the 1960s and 70s.
“We got into this profession because of her,” Roger Mark said.
The club has three indoor and three outdoor tennis courts but there’s a lot of fixing up yet to be done.
“The outdoor courts have been completely neglected,” Lattier said. “The tree roots have actually gone under the courts and grown up.”
He said club members had a good laugh watching the new owners change light bulbs.
“One of the first things we did when we came in was put on the grubby clothes and started doing maintenance,” Lattier said. Saturday morning breakfast club participants “were just amazed that the courts were clean. I told them ‘you shouldn’t be amazed that the courts are clean.’”
One of the areas new owners plan to change is the mix of members who regularly make use of the facility. Former owners focused a lot on developing teens — the “juniors” in tennis lingo. Though juniors will still have plenty of access to coaching, the new approach will encourage the entire family to participate.
“We’re going to do a strong junior program,” Roger Mark said. “But you can’t just do juniors only. We’re going to do adults and juniors, a balanced program. That’s where our business model should be a better business model.”
Mark also coached during the 1980s at Forest Crest Tennis Club, 4901 238th St. SW, in Mountlake Terrace, where he started Avanti Sports. He’ll open another Avanti Sports at the Mill Creek Tennis Club, and the club will have a full service pro shop.
“I have a large clientele up there, so I’m familiar with that area,” Roger Mark said. “It’s like I’m coming home again.”
Purchasing the tennis center establishes “a northern influence for us,” Roger Mark said. Brother Byron is managing partner in an industrial engineering firm.
“What my brother brings to the table is he is in charge of facilities. He brings an engineer’s logic to it and he’s upgrading our facilities.”
A coming change, in addition to court upgrades, includes roof repair.
Lattier, who’s completing a masters degree in sports medicine at Seattle University, said Mark approached him about running the center because he knew he lived in town.
“I think, obviously, he wouldn’t have come into this if he didn’t think it would be successful,” Lattier said.
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