BEST PUBLIC TENNIS COURTS

Though we hardly could be called card-carrying members of the country-club set, we do occasionally enjoy pretending that we can smack a tennis ball with the best of 'em. And that's a backhanded way of informing our fellow lob-sters that our favorite place to run ourselves in circles is this wonderful city-run facility, tucked away in a west Phoenix residential park. For a few bucks (and a few more at night), you can hit the yellow orb to your heart's content on one of the 22 well-kept, lighted courts. It doesn't hurt that the pro shop is stocked with goodies, the locker rooms are more than adequate and the vending machines rarely are empty. Now if only we can figure out how to get that first serve in more than once in a blue moon.