Sportime Schenectady

The best clay courts I have ever played on. No bad bounces and the footing is very good compared to most other clay courts. You can tell that the staff puts a lot of time into maintaining these courts. The prostaff is awesome also, all of them are extremely knowledgable when it comes to tennis and are by far the best teaching pros in an area where people who have knowledge about tennis are hard to find. Very friendly atmosphere for kids and adults as well, kids seem to love hanging out there and the adults do as well. Overall, if you play tennis in the albany area this is the only option, as sportime has everything you need in high level coaching, friendly staff and a small but fully equipped fitness area.

I echo Wendy M’s review of this tennis club. The lack of consideration of the GM was beyond shocking. There clearly was another court available, but his lack of flexibility and basic human courtesy in giving our players a few more minutes on an open court was appalling. We have choices in which tennis/​fitness clubs we join, and the GM’s behavior that day has helped me and my colleagues make my choice among clubs and our future contract time. And, it certainly won’t be Sportime!!!

On Sunday, February 23, we played a USTA 3.5 match at Sportime NY Schenectady. We were playing a third set tie break on court #2 when we noticed a man standing next to the court watching us. When we switched sides at 4 – 5, he condescendingly told us that we had to move because we «get two hours to play and that’s all we’re allowed». We found out that this man is the General Manager. The GM and his staff were setting up for a kids party in the courts to our right. We told the GM that we were almost done. We asked if we could move to court #1. He told us the «courts were all being used» and that we had to leave. We stayed in the lobby for 30 minutes and court #1 was never used. Neither team wanted to forfeit the match. We called Tri-​City Tennis Club in Latham and they graciously allowed us the fifteen minutes (ten of which were for warming up) we needed to finish up – for FREE.

Basically a pretty hardcore racquets club that also has fitness rooms and a few other facilities. There are indoor and outdoor tennis courts galore, two racquetball courts, weight training and aerobic/​agility workout rooms. There’s a tiny pro shop and they’ll do restringing for you, acceptable locker rooms, sort of a weird layout as befits a place cobbled together from a series of steel and inflatable buildings. They have scads and scads of instructional programs ranging all the way down to summer fitness camp for toddlers (I am not making this up) and what looks like a series of internal tournaments. There’s an outdoor seasonal pool, but no basketball or open gym that I can discern. They’ve got a few odd extras, like yoga classes and tanning and basically pile on the amenities (free coffee, toiletries in the locker rooms, wifi, that kind of thing). There’s no snack bar — just vending and the coffee — and the small lounge/​waiting area is comfortable enough but isn’t going to be much of a hang out place with views only of the indoor courts.
The pricing is good — flat rate of $ 39 a month for individuals at this writing, no contracts, with couples and family discounts, which gets you access and the amenities but not court time, which is extra. There is a $ 100 «initiation» fee and if your membership goes inactive you still have to pay $ 20 a month (or quit and repay the «initiation fee» again), but that’s still a lot cheaper than canceling a yearly membership fees at a lot of other health clubs and gyms.
Kid bonus: they do a nice kid birthday package where they’ll send your birthday kid and guests through a bunch of games that they’d be playing anyway if kids still went out and got together on their own but since kids don’t do that anymore they eat it up (in our experience, at least).