Game, set, match: 68,000 players face eviction in north shore tennis stoush

One of Sydney’s longest-running community tennis centres has been ordered to vacate its north shore home after an Aboriginal land council secured ownership of the site, setting up a high-stakes dispute that has drawn involvement from sporting champions, politicians and prominent media figures.

The Northern Suburbs Tennis Association (NSTA) will be required to hand over the keys to the eight-court Talus Street Tennis Centre at Naremburn by September 30 after receiving a formal eviction notice from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC), which took ownership of the Crown land reserve as part of a successful land claim in 2022.

The move threatens to end almost 50 years of tennis at the site, where generations of players have graced its courts alongside Australian champions Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Pat Cash.

The eviction notice has stunned members of the centre, which records more than 62,000 player visits annually and is regarded as one of the busiest community tennis facilities of its size in Sydney.

It has also thrust the reserve into an increasingly contentious debate over NSW Aboriginal land rights laws, particularly when land returned under the legislation is home to long-established community facilities.

At the centre of the dispute is the financial arrangement governing the site.

When the MLALC acquired the reserve, it inherited existing lease arrangements involving the NSTA, which has occupied the site since 1978, and Love’n Deuce, the private operator that has managed the tennis centre for about four decades.

Under those arrangements, the NSTA pays annual rent of $46,000 – a figure the MLALC has long argued falls well below the market value of a commercial operation occupying more than a hectare of valuable north shore land.

MLALC chief executive Nathan Moran said the land council had spent the past year reviewing the arrangements and considering whether to increase the association’s rent or seek an alternative operator willing to pay what it considers a fair return.

“As the owner, we have to cover insurance, rates and maintenance of the site, and the challenge is for us to ensure the site does not become a financial liability when it was meant to be provided as recompense under land rights,” Moran said.

“Paying $46,000 for operating eight commercial courts does not pass the pub test.”

The land council has also been examining redevelopment options. Earlier this year, it submitted plans to the NSW government’s Housing Delivery Authority for an 18-storey, 303-apartment tower on the reserve. The proposal was rejected by the panel, although it noted alternative planning pathways remained open should the land council pursue redevelopment in the future.

NSTA president Wayne Pascoe said the association was prepared to consider paying substantially more to remain at the site but had been unable to secure a meeting with the land council to negotiate.

“Of course we were willing to look at the arrangements and increasing the amount we pay, and it’s been disappointing we haven’t had that opportunity,” he said.