WESTOOD SPORTING GOODS BY FRANCISCO RESENDIZ

Written by: Staff on 6th May 2014

WESTOOD SPORTING GOODS BY FRANCISCO RESENDIZ

epaselect epa04192074 Japanese tennis player Kei Nishikori's shadow is silhouetted on the court as he serves the ball against Croatian Ivan Dodig during their men's singles first round tennis match of the Mutua Madrid Open played at Caja Magica complex in Madrid, Spain, on 05 May 2014. EPA/EMILIO NARANJO |

Westwood Sporting Goods Celebrates 80 Years in Los Angeles.

Tennis history is in the walls of Westwood Sporting Goods. Walking into the small, venerable tennis shop – which this year is celebrating its 80th year of operation – on a mid-morning, mid-week visit, you could practically see it seeping out from all four sides. And you could certainly smell it.

It’s that smell of used balls, and new shoes and rackets, of tennis players fresh off the courts digging through boxes of barely used sticks to be used possibly the next time out on court, as a demo.

There’s an old long-haired Andre Agassi Donnay cutout staring at you, and a five-inch mounted Tarpon fish caught and then gifted to the shop by tennis Hall of Famer Tony Trabert.

If that doesn’t get your attention, then it’s surely the stuffed head of a giant Canadian Moose right above the classic retro cash register machine straight out of the mid-1930s.

Owner Rick Hartman is the merry leader of this band, having taken over the shop located 15 court-lengths away from the campus of UCLA at 1065 Gayley Ave., in Westwood Village from his stepfather Bill Johns, who sold him the store in 2004.

“Sam Querrey was just in here,” said Hartman, busy stringing a racket. “Pete (Sampras) comes in and so does Sloane (Stephens) and other pros.”

They come because of Hartman and 40-year-plus stringing veteran Dave Bishop, who specialize in hybrid stringing and can answer the most minute details about the stringing process.

A good personalized stringing job is vital to a tennis player’s success. And stringing is what Hartman and his guys do best.

According to an LA Tennis Examiner story on the store authored by Tennis Media Group’s Rich Neher and published in 2011, Westwood Sporting Goods started in 1934 by a gentleman by the name of Shelby Johns. It was founded as a “general sporting goods store carrying everything from baseballs to rifles, bows and arrows.”

(To read more about Neher’s store visit, go here: http://www.examiner.com/article/tennis-retailer-westwood-sporting-goods-77-years-business).

On this morning, former UCLA All-American Zach Fleishman stopped in. He explained to Hartman that he hasn’t been playing much, but that he needed a rush job on a racket for a special event that night.

“Can it be done by 5?” Fleishman asked. Shouldn’t be a problem. “We’ll see you then.”

Next came Trey Waltke, the former Top 30 player from the 1970s and early ‘80s who once beat John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors in the same year. He now runs the Malibu Racquet Club and turned over one racket and set of strings to be strung by Hartman’s team. Perhaps for his lesson with Larry Ellison.

Current WTA touring pro Lauren Embree was next, as she and a friend fresh off the courts checked things out. A new overgrip, perhaps? It didn’t seem like the first time here for the former NCAA champ from the University of Florida.

Other tennis players and nuts came and went, and you got a sense that this place was unique, and different. And that this could have been 1936 all over again. And you wondered why there weren’t more like it. And you hoped it might stick around. For perhaps another 80 years.

For more information on Westwood Sporting Goods, call (310) 208-6215.

Editors Note : We’ve been visiting Los Angeles on and off since the sixties. We always make Westwood sporting goods a pit stop. It’s like walking into a shop frozen in time. Whenever we were in town we would take Gussy Moran by Rick’s shop. She loved it. It reminded her of all the great old tennis shops. She loved quiet Rick.( Gussy and a good looking man that knew tennis. …) She would buy him a 4 pound box ( who knew they sold 4 pounds) of SEES Chocolates… The team here dislike the big discounters in tennis. These little shops are very important in our sport. You don’t need an inventory of 1/4 million dollars to find and customize the right racket to play with. In the old days Jimmy Connors was a regular. Sampras was there a lot but preferred to send Paul Annacone or “Moose ” his trainer. This team of world class stringers always strung the pros rackets before the “undertakers ” killed the Los Angeles tennis tourney. They’ve strung for the lady pros in Manhattan Beach and Carson and downtown LA for the Year end championships.

Topics: Sports, Tennis, Tennis News, Westwood Sporting Goods