Eloy Montano loves tennis and cherishes Santa Fe’s public spaces dedicated to the sport — and he has the receipts to prove it.

Literally.

A full 20 minutes before the sun came up on a recent morning at Salvador Perez Park, the 90-year-old was already setting up for a private lesson when he reached into his backpack and pulled out a sandwich bag filled with neatly folded financial documents. They showed figures totaling well into four figures, a transaction history showing how he’s used his own money to maintain the courts at the city-owned park known for the landmark AT&SF locomotive familiar to so many native Santa Feans.

In July, he used those funds to repaint the white lines on all four courts, meticulously taping each line and putting the paint down himself. He did so, he says, after repeated attempts to get the city’s assistance went unanswered.

The city says that’s not entirely true.

“We greatly appreciate the dedication of our park volunteers, and we are always thrilled to collaborate with both individual stewards and groups,” wrote Melissa McDonald in an email response this week.

The director of the city Parks and Open Space Division, McDonald oversees the park Montano has dedicated his energy to.

“Our crew is familiar with Mr. Montano’s terrific work — it’s a testament to the positive impact of community involvement in our parks,” she says. “Our maintenance crews are eager to lend a helping hand whenever possible in support of these stewards. We are inspired by the hundreds of individuals who

contribute their efforts to keep our parks clean and our facilities maintained.”

This fall, Montano hopes to secure enough money to order thousands of dollars’ worth of green paint to resurface the courts, then another equally large sum to buy brown paint to refinish the borders. He offers lessons to senior citizens and, if we’re being honest, anyone and everyone who shows an interest in growing the game.

If that interest involves Salvador Perez Park, he’ll gladly show up at 6:30 to prepare the courts for a lesson that doesn’t begin for another 90 minutes. He’ll sweep the courts of leaves and debris using his own push broom, sometimes bringing his own leaf blower.

He’ll ready a basket of old tennis balls he leaves courtside when he heads home. He’ll even check the tensile strength of the nets and give the surrounding area a once-over to ensure the conditions are perfect.

In the winter, that means being ready to remove the snow. In the fall, when the leaves litter the ground, it means knowing exactly where the piles go to ensure the wind doesn’t scatter them back into play.

“I grew up here; I feel like these tennis courts are part of my family,” Montano says. “They all are.”

And with that, the man who has spent most of his nine decades in a city that barely resembles the one of his youth seamlessly rolls into a laundry list of places around town that have — and once had — usable tennis courts. It is soon followed by a similarly long list of names of those who helped build the game for previous generations, one whose entries are mostly no longer with us.

“I don’t know if you know any of those people, but they were all important,” he says. “Every one of them.”

Montano takes a minute to run his right hand along the top of a net that divides one of the courts. All four of those nets, he explains, he purchased and installed using money he raised through private lessons and contributions from others. None of the money came from the city, he explains.

“He does so much of the work himself because he’s proud to be the self-appointed curator,” says Montano’s friend, Charles Marquez. “He has always been that way. If the city won’t do it, he just does it himself. We need more people like that. He’s just this slim little guy, and he will do the work without thinking about it.”

Montano points to a pair of signs hanging on the chainlink fence near the entrance near the trademark train, one in English, the other in Spanish. They outline the seven rules for using the courts; among them no playing soccer, chewing gum or bringing in additional chairs.

“The city did put those up for me,” he says. “But the chairs I put in here keep getting stolen. People steal the chairs.”

He’s also had an ongoing battle with the pickleball crowd. Earlier this year, someone took it upon themselves to use bright red paint to outline four courts on top of the one court Montano likes to use for senior citizen lessons.

“I hope I can get enough paint to get rid of those,” he says.

As much as he understands that Salvador Perez is a public facility open to anyone free of charge, Montano feels he’s put in the work to at least have a say in how the place looks. It’s been that way for decades, dating to a time long before pickleball, long before much of the land surrounding the park looks the way it does now.

“When I was younger, my family owned a little shoe repair shop,” he says. “I would take the nets down because they had these long tears in them all the way to the end. My mother would help me do the repairs, but only if I was able to give the shop some money. She fixed every part, all these little knots. Did it all by hand.”

Raised in Santa Fe, Montano attended Santa Fe High and eventually served in the Korean War. He lost two immediate family members, he says, in World War II. After the war, he spent time in California as a union metal worker, helping construct freeways. He returned home about 60 years ago and has been here ever since.

As a kid, he says he found his way into the tennis world on accident. He tells the story about how he was asked to retrieve something from his sister’s closet, whereupon he found an old racket buried inside. From then on, it was tennis that had his focus.

“Oh, I am on a court every day it feels like,” Montano says, volleying balls over the net during a lesson.

Sometimes, he says, a homeless person drifts by and takes up space, maybe moves things around or wanders onto the court seeking shelter.

“I don’t shoo them away,” he says. “I buy them burritos, do something good for them. They need good things to happen for them. Why would I chase anyone away from a tennis court?”

The goal, he says, has always been the same: Do good, whatever the cost.

Oh, and never answer the phone when the 49ers are playing. He doesn’t own an answering machine, and if you ever happen to get him to pick up when he’s not ready to talk, don’t be offended if he hangs up.

It’s just the way things work for a man who has his priorities set and knows exactly how he wants things done.

And that includes the tennis courts at his home away from home, Salvador Perez Park.