Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament to Furnish Libbey Park

Written by: Staff on 1st April 2012

Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament to Furnish Libbey Park |

OJAI, Calif. (March 29, 2012) – The 112th Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, taking place April 24-29 and the largest amateur tennis tournament in the United States, will illuminate Libbey Park in Ojai with new lights on its eight tennis courts in advance of the 2012 Pac-12 Championships and The Ojai’s other competitions.

The Ojai Valley Tennis Club, operator of The Ojai, is working with Southern California-based Visionaire Lighting, LLC and Visionaire technical development director Bill Hein – a former competitor at The Ojai – on the permanent lighting project, which is set to begin on April 2 and take two weeks to complete. In all, 64 Visionaire Advantage fixtures will be inserted, with each Libbey Park court being surrounded by eight fixtures.

The lighting project will supply Libbey Park’s courts with enough illumination to meet Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) standards in order for the site to host Pac-12 Championship team matches that don’t finish before sundown, as well as to meet lighting standards for television broadcast.

“We are delighted to have secured our lighting project and we are excited to see Libbey park’s new lights put to use, when necessary, for the 112th Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament in April,” said Ojai Valley Tennis Club President Vivian Perrett. “Our new lights will be quite a spectacle to behold and will shine a wonderful spotlight on the Pac-12 Championships at The Ojai.”

The Ojai, a Southern California tennis tradition since 1896, is the oldest amateur tournament played at the same location in the United States. The Ojai features competition among more than 1,500 junior, high school, collegiate and adult players at more than 100 courts and 30 sites in Ventura County, including private courts in Ojai.

Located in the heart of downtown Ojai, Libbey Park is the tournament’s principal venue and site of the annual Pac-12 Championship matches, as well as the finals of all 27 divisions of The Ojai, including the collegiate Div. III West Regionals, Community and Independent Colleges, Junior and CIF events, and the Open division.

The OVTC approved a $55,000 project to replace the lights at Libbey Park’s upper and lower tennis courts. The OVTC funded $20,000 of the project and raised the remaining $35,000 through donations from the Ojai Civic Association, Ojai resident and former tournament volunteer Michael Taggart, the Pac-12 Conference, Visionaire and Glendale-based tennis supply company NJP Sports.

The Visionaire fixtures are specially designed to provide uniform lighting within the tennis court framework while limiting glare that emits beyond the courts. The new lights will put forth more than 100 foot-candles of illumination, as compared to the 23 foot-candles of illumination the old lights provided.

The new lighting fixtures are more energy-efficient, featuring bulbs of longer life and lower maintenance than their predecessors. Each light is fully illuminated within two-to-four minutes of being turned on, and the vertical mounting of the bulbs makes for greater reflection onto the court.

In 2011, the Ojai Valley Tennis Club completed a renovation of the lower Libbey Park courts to match the upper Libbey Park court project completed in 2003.