The Nets Are Up in Flushing Meadows. But Not for the Sport You Think.

Each summer season, Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens hosts some of the distinct, frequently functioning sporting occasions in New York City. It options tons of of gamers hitting balls, scrumptious meals on supply and spectators sipping drinks whereas soaking within the leisure. And on the opposite facet of a fence, there may be additionally a tennis match.

For just about so long as the U.S. Open has been held at its present web site, households, largely immigrants from Ecuador, have made the encompassing parkland and parking tons dwelling to their very own sort of championships.

Their recreation is understood to many as ecuavoley, a model of three-a-side volleyball believed to have originated in Ecuador, the place many think about it a nationwide sport alongside soccer. It can also be one of many main actions on this nook of New York.

“This is my game,” Miguel Tenecela, 41, an electrician from Corona, Queens, mentioned between video games. “It is in my blood.”

Because of its range, Queens is usually known as the world’s borough, however some areas take pleasure in a pronounced Ecuadorean taste. Some estimate the variety of individuals in Queens initially from the Andean nation at effectively over 100,000, with many concentrated in Corona, the neighborhood simply west of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. And as it’s with the U.S. Open, the park is the place they showcase their favored sport.

Last weekend, Tenecela and lots of of his family and friends members gathered, as they typically do, for hours of ecuavoley, additionally known as voley or boley, a recreation with Andean roots courting to the nineteenth century. On Friday, Yarina’s “Rosalia-Ecuador” pumped from a speaker as barbecue grills billowed savory smoke from below the various pink and blue canopies surrounding the taking part in courts.

People laughed, youngsters darted round on bicycles and scooters, younger dad and mom — together with some ladies in conventional Andean clothes — pushed child carriages, and gamers hustled and perspired as spectators cheered. At night time, moveable lights have been hoisted into tree branches, powered by batteries and mills, and cash modified arms, the wagering including some sizzle to the heated competitors.

Mostly on weekends in the summertime, dozens of courts are lined out by skinny ropes anchored into the grime by steel spikes. The courts are rigorously positioned alongside the New York Hall of Science, close to the place many tennis followers park their automobiles earlier than getting into the U.S. Open. Some of the tennis fanatics look on the festivities on their stroll to the stadiums and see scores of gamers, many sporting the jerseys of Ecuador’s nationwide soccer group or their favourite membership groups, pushing massive, extremely inflated soccer balls over skinny nets.

At least twice as many canopies, courts and folks — ecuavoley and soccer gamers, spectators and picnickers — have been unfold throughout different areas of the park on Sunday, a minimum of a number of thousand in all, a parallel sporting universe to the trendier tennis championships on the opposite facet of the tall fences.

Years in the past, the sport was performed nearly fully by immigrants from Ecuador. But as individuals with backgrounds from different nations, like Peru, Mexico and Colombia, noticed their Ecuadorean neighbors play the sport, some joined. On Sunday, a big Mexican flag was draped over one of many tents. But the overwhelming majority of gamers final weekend have been from locations like Cuenca and Chimborazo in Ecuador.

“It is very important for our community,” mentioned Arnold Saquipulla, a welder who’s from close to Cuenca and has been taking part in ecuavoley within the park for 20 years. “People work hard. This is what we love to do to relax. It keeps us connected.”

The sport has been particularly necessary for the neighborhood after the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 ravaged Corona, Elmhurst and different elements of Queens. One in each two individuals within the neighborhood was recognized with Covid-19, in accordance with the town well being division, and one in each 160 residents died from it in that space. Many have been mates of Teresa Benitez and her household, longtime ecuavoley members from Corona.

“We lost maybe 200 people we knew from here, people who came here to play volleyball with us,” mentioned Benitez, a retail employee. “There was a time I was afraid to look at my phone. I did not want to see another text about someone who was gone. It was terrible.”

“Now,” she added, spreading her arms to point all the space of play, “we make sure we enjoy all of this.”

During the U.S. Open annually, some minor restrictions are imposed, Benitez mentioned. Some areas are misplaced to short-term parking tons, and a heightened police and safety presence can generally restrict motion. Still, the video games go on.

“It’s only a couple of weeks,” Benitez mentioned. “You have to share. It’s the fair thing.”

Benitez got here to New York from Cuenca in 1982 at age 11 together with her household, together with her youthful sister, Blanca. Back then, individuals performed their particular model of volleyball near the Willets Point-Shea Stadium subway station on the No. 7 line. Gradually it has grown and moved to different places close by.

Most of the gamers are males, however Benitez mentioned her father inspired her and Blanca to play sports activities, too, and she or he handed that on to her youngsters. She loves taking part in soccer probably the most, as does her daughter Adriana Tito, a nursing pupil. Tito gained her league championship recreation in soccer on Sunday morning, then went to the park to play ecuavoley together with her mom, father, aunt and household mates. Her knees have been scarred and bloodied from each video games.

“I hate losing,” Tito mentioned with amusing. “I’ll do whatever it takes to win.”

With three gamers per facet, every group is allowed to the touch the ball solely 3 times earlier than sending it over the online, which is greater and thinner (extra like a banner) than an atypical volleyball web. Players might carry the ball of their arms a bit longer than in conventional volleyball. The massive, exhausting ball takes its toll on arms and wrists.

“When you start playing in the spring, after a long winter with no playing, it can hurt a lot,” mentioned Segundo Roque, 42, a building employee, who can also be initially from close to Cuenca. “Now I can only play about six games, then it is too much on the arms.”

Games are often divided into units of 10 or 12 factors, and the primary group to win two units takes the match. On uncommon events, groups cease after one or two units, which is named medio pollo, or half hen — a dodgy tactic employed to keep away from shedding a wager. Tenecela, the electrician, was noticeably bitter after an opposing group pulled a medio pollo at one set apiece.

“I don’t like playing against people like that,” he sneered. “It’s not the right spirit.”

Of course, not everybody shares that zeal for ecuavoley. Soccer is fiercely contested throughout the park, and that’s the recreation that Luis Cueva, 51, prefers.

“For me, the volleyball is boring,” mentioned Cueva, a building employee. “But so many people love it.”