SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Source: Brownstoner. Click to enlarge

Tennis anyone?

The popular racquet sport, along with yoga, swimming and dancing, are returning to the intersection of Shell Road and Avenue Z in Gravesend in what is set to be Brooklyn’s largest sports complex.

Sheepshead Bites first learned about the deal from the broker, Brian Hanson of Massey Knakel Realty Services, and now a report by Brownstoner provides a few new details.

Costing $20 million, the 140,000 square-foot complex, dubbed MatchPoint NYC, will feature a whopping nine indoor tennis courts, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a restaurant. It replaces the Brooklyn Racquet Club, which closed in 2011 and was later demolished.

Set to open in six months, the facility – developed by Dmitry Druzhinsky and tennis coach Noumroud Moukhatasov, and spearheaded by entrepreneur Sergey Rybak – will provide an outlet to accommodate for the huge Russian love of tennis.

Coming in from Five Boro Sports: Leon M. Goldstein High School – formerly Kingsborough High School – competed for the first time in the Mayor’s Cup this past weekend.

The team was led by freshman Becky Shtilkind, who last week defeated Cardozo freshman Arielle Griffin, 6-0, 6-1, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, making her the “first freshman to win the PSAL girls’ tennis individual tennis championship in recent memory.” Shtlikind is a Ukrainian immigrant living in Sheepshead Bay.

The victory over Cardozo won them entrance to the Mayor’s Cup this weekend, where the sixth-seeded Dolphins bested No. 3 Francis Lewis, 5-0, in the quarterfinals in Flushing. They faced Cardoza – No 2. – on Sunday and lost in the semifinals.

Despite ending their Mayor’s Cup run in the semifinals, the team still ought to be proud to have raised the bar for Goldstein High School’s sports.