THE TOP DOGS HEADED TO TORINO

Fight to the finish before ATP descends on Piedmont

What makes a tennis player a “master”? Is it age or experience? The proficiency shown with each player’s main tool, the tennis racquet? Maybe a Jedi-like finesse over an opponent?

As the ATP defines it, a “master” wins one of its nine tournaments per year worth more than 1,000 ranking points. In that case, the ATP has served many masters in 2023, not just Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, although the surrounding hype seems as if they are neck-and-neck at every major. 

Rather, after Paris finished with Djokovic looking like Obi-Wan Kenobi — the final Masters tournament of nine this year — the year-end crown at the ATP Finals in Turin could theoretically wind up in the hands of any one of eight of the Top Ten players. In reality, however, only really five could likely rise to the occasion: Djokovic (of course), Andrey Rublev (winner of the Monte Carlo Masters), Jannik Sinner (Canadian Open champion) and Medvedev, who has actually won with two Masters titles this year. 

What about last year’s finalist, Caspar Ruud? “I’m still alive,” he said last week in Paris, and even moved up to No. 7, despite losing in the second round to Argentinian Francisco Cerúndolo.  

A late-season surge from Hubert Hurkacz  (ATP No. 11), although impressive, wasn’t quite enough to push the pole into the top ten although American Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 9) is now out for the rest of the year with an abdominal tear. This left Rudd, come-back kid Alexander Zverev, who is dealing with domestic troubles in Germany and Holger Rune, a three-place tumbler to ATP No. 10, respectively, in a dogfight for one of the last spots in Turin. Were it not for a couple of lucky breaks — Fritz’s folly and the early release of new coach Boris Becker from prison — Rune would be back in Monte Carlo, getting ready for Australia after winning only four of his last past 12 matches between Wimbledon and Paris. 

“The more peace and quietness there is around a tennis player, the better they can perform and if it’s less, the more tough it is to keep the focus,” said Rune, who lost in the Paris quarter-finals to Djokovic, whom he defeated for the 2022 Masters title. “It was definitely tough for me to be the best version of myself and that’s not good for any athlete.”

Still, because the “best version” of Rune waited until the end of the season, he is left in the same position for Turin as just a year prior — alternate — with an assured spot going to his Nordic arch-nemesis, thé nice-guy to Rune’s bad-boy, Casper Ruud. 

 “This year has been challenging in many ways,” Ruud added. “When you have this ranking you have more expectations on yourself, you think you have chance to play the final or win the trophy every tournament you play.”

“When you lose early you’re like, ‘What’s going on? Am I worse? Are other players much better?’ It was a season to try to gain experience from competing as a top three or top five member.”

But Ruud may do better than expected in Torino after all, as Alcaraz and Medvedev exited Bercy in the second round — Alcaraz in straight sets to unknown Russian player, Roman Safiullin. Both Zverez and Sinner went out in the round of 16 — Sinner after finishing a match around 3am, a mere 14 hours before his next round. Of the current Top 10, it might prove impossible to unthrone Djokovic, and only Rublev and Tsitsipas (and alternate Rune) will realistically look spritely enough for the challenge during the press session on Piazza San Carlo later this week. 

But just as with the women’s tour, which barely finished after tsunami-like rain and wind perpetuated match delays, multiple  reschedules and Virgin Mary memes of a towel-wrapped Aryna Sabalenk, malcontent lingers during the final weeks on the men’s circuit. Two days after his pre-Masters presser, Ruud complained bitterly on Instagram about the late starts and long hours on court. “Bravo ATP Tour way to help one of the best players in the world recover and be as ready as possible when he finished his previous match at 2:37 am this morning,” he wrote, speaking of compatriot Sinner. 

“14.5 hours to recover… what a joke.”

In addition to Sinner, who subtly remarked about the difficulty of “going on court after midnight,” in Paris and the comments about Cancun, tennis pundits are now piling on, too. Rennae Stubbs, a former professional doubles player and ESPN commentator has revived the ages-old idea that the ATP and WTA tours merge. “Finishing at almost 3am at a Masters 1000!!!! WTH ATP Tour!!! What is happening! It’s indoors!!!! How is this possible!!?????,” Stubbs wrote emphatically on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Man I think it’s time someone took over the ATP AND WTA tours! Anyone out there that thinks they could do this better??? Join tours!??”

Maybe? But perhaps, everyone is just ready for a break. The U.S. Open used to more or less effectively end the regular season. But the tours, eager to keep fans happy, as well as country associations hungry for prestige and tourism money, keep adding to the calendar. Master’s events — now known on tour as “mini-slams” — are piled on to team events, such as the BJK Cup, the Davis Cup and now the Laver Cup, for which patriotic players must also find time fwhile tallying more rankings points among the dozen or so tournaments scattered across Europe and Asia from late September to early November. They may be getting extra air miles, but is it a wonder they are withdrawing from fatigue? Moreover, many experts are now saying the sacrifice for success at season’s end doesn’t bode well for their readiness for January — when it all begins again. 

“I feel that for the past few weeks, I have been very tired. After Astana (Astana Open in Kazakhstan) , there were two or three times when I wanted to work, but I couldn’t because I was too tired,” said veteran Stan Wawrinka, who, at age 38, battled back into the Top 50 this year. “It’s also been a year and a half that I’ve been pushing the machine to get back to the high level. I worked a lot to find this ranking and there is also a mental fatigue that accumulates which means that at times, I make the wrong choices.

“Now you have to know that it requires a lot of effort, more than in the past, more than you can see. These are daily sacrifices, which are compensated by the love I receive wherever I play. It remains to be seen how long I can last.”

PICKLE VS. PADEL

An infiltrating Pickleball player photographed near a sign-up sheet at Cpl. John A. Seravalli Playground, New York. Photo: Gothamist.com

A certain spicy new racquet sport takes America by storm, while Europe grapples with glass cages and a fast bat.

A new turf war has broken out in New York City and other major metropolitan locales around the country, and it has nothing to do with bloods, crypts, guns, knives or drugs — and everything to do with Padel and a “dill ball.”

Yes. While tennis courts are still nearly impossible to come by, Pickleball, a cross between tennis, whiffle ball and badminton, has swept across the blacktops of Manhattan’s spare lots, taking over the spots where children used to jump rope and merrily play kickball. Now, on any given square inch concrete from Harlem to the Battery and even the Wollman Ice Rink in Central Park, horrified, bemused or curious onlookers will find adults in athleisure chalking out their ground, hanging waist-high nets and charging at each other to whack a small, plastic orb for points.

Pickleball, once relegated to tennis clubs looking to bring back members, has become the fastest-growing American sport. It’s also become one of the most treacherous pastimes, filling local newspapers across the country with news of fights, arrests, vandalism and other skullduggery. In Manhattan, Ground Zero for the Pickleball wars is Cpl. John A. Seravalli Playground, an acre stretch of open asphalt — long popular with local children — where park officials no sooner erase makeshift courts before regulars draw them again. Outraged residents have called several City Council meetings to control the outbreak, to no avail. “The magic of pickleball is it can be played anywhere, on any asphalt,” said Samir Lavingia, a Pickleball enthusiast who urged the New York City Council to close roads for court space as a solution.

Impromptu Pickleball players at Central Park’s 97th Street North Meadow handball courts. Tennis players formerly used the walls to practice.

But what is Pickleball, exactly? And does the fun of it deserve this disarray? How does it compare to tennis or that other racquet sport taking Europe middle-Agee by middle-ager: Padel ball?

In form and function, Pickleball might be the truest to the origins of Lawn Tennis, the sport invented in 1874 by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield. Wingfield, of course, took the game with which Harry Gem and Augurio Perera were experimenting with in Birmingham, boxed it up and started selling sets that included wooden racquets, rubber balls, a net, poles, an instruction manual, and… court markers.” The carefree Victorian masses could pick up a kit at the local PoundSaver — or it’s 19th-century equivalent — stake out the ground on a lawn and start playing within minutes.

An advertisement for one of the first lawn tennis kits made by Major Wingfield.

Much like its cousin — as anecdotes suggest — Pickleball is the product of the whimsical 1960s and bored, spoiled children, as well as their three Republican Baby-Boomer dads: Joel Pritchard, a Republican state representative and later a U.S. congressman; Bill Bell, a businessman; and Barney McCallum, a printing-company owner. All were vacationers on Bainbridge Island, Washington; all had kids with “nothing to do on Bainbridge,” said Frank Pritchard, Joel’s son. “(My dad) said that when they were kids, they’d make games up.” The elder Pritchard promptly took down the backyard badminton court, went to the back shed and grabbed a plastic perforated ball from whiffleball set, and added table tennis paddles to the mix. Joan Pritchard — wife of Joel, mother of Frank — came up with the name “Pickleball” as a reference to the game’s thrown-together, leftover nature. Later in the sport’s history, an interested neighbour crafted squarer paddles.

An early Pickleball match on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

In terms of rules and scoring, Pickleball is nothing like tennis, however, and more like squash. Games are played to 11 (or 15 and 21 during a tournament) and won by two points. After an underhanded serve, which supposedly makes the game more equitable, there is a two-bounce rule — receiving side and serving side — before each team tries to make the other one “fault” or fail to return the ball, hit the ball out of bounds or smack the ball into the net. The server continues to serve, alternating service courts, until the serving side faults and allows the opposition the ability to serve and thereby, score. A few more rules apply — and they get even more complicated than tennis.

Padel players at El Teu Clud de Tenis y Padel in the heart of Barcelona, Spain.

In Europe, the new Pickleball, however, is actually called Padel — short for Padel tennis, and unlike the random, laissez-faire nature of its American tennis knockoff, Padel actually has courts, leagues, decorum and the general feel of the original racquet sport.

The problem that Padel solved for would-be tennis players was, of course, space. In 1969 in Acapulco, Mexico, Enrique Corcuera, a wealthy professional,didn’t have enough space to put in a tennis court. Instead, he lengthened his squash court, stuck a net in the middle and put glass walls around it to play what he christened “Paddle Corcuera“. Corcuera gave his Padel essentially the same rules and scoring as tennis, with the exception of the ability to hit the tennis ball off the wall and a mandatory underhand serve (new sport, Nick Kyrgios?). Padel racquets are half-tennis racket, half-table-tennis paddle, meaning they are shorter and solid in the middle.

Of course, Corcuera couldn’t keep the game to himself. Anyone who stayed with him in Mexico played Padel, including aristocrats from Spain and entrepreneurs from Argentina. Enrique’s Spanish friend Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the “playboy who who made Marbella into a glamorous resort,” returned from Mexico to Spain a changed man after trying Padel. He created the first two Padel courts at a tennis club there in 1974. Not long after, Julio Mendieguy, an Argentine millionaire and frequent guest of Marbella, brought the sport to his home country.

An early Padel match played in Spain during the 1970s. Padel and platform tennis and lawn tennis have similar rules. The only difference is surface — and racquet.

Today, over two million Argentinians play Padel on more than 10,000 courts across the country. By 2005, Padel had taken over 1,000 clubs in Spain and the various Padel Associations banded together to form the Padel Pro Tour (PPT), followed by today’s governing body, the World Padel Tour (WPT). In England, a group of expats living in Spain formed the British Padel Association (now known as LTA Padel) and by 2011, David Lloyd Leisure — Europe’s largest health and fitness club chain — installed the country’s first Padel courts. England now has more than 165 public courts, including at Hyde and Regents Parks, the LTA headquarters in Roehampton and various individual clubs, such as the prestigious Surbiton Racquet Club, which ceded precious tennis courts used for its Wimbledon challenger for its new Padel center.

Dan Dios, the father of modern Padel seen hawking his new Padel racquet. “Within two years, we’re going to see a huge explosion,” said the former captain of the Swedish national team and a Padel business developer. “All eyes in the European Padel brands right now are on the UK market, waiting for that explosion to happen.”

Could this be the point at which a tennis-like sport actually splits the U.S. and Europe?

Since 2020, a burgeoning Pickleball pro scene has also been accelerated by two tours in the U.S., the A.P.P. (Association of Pickleball Professionals) and the P.P.A. (Professional Pickleball Association), which run more than fifty tournaments a year. The prize money isn’t great, but sponsorships attract hundreds of players to the circuit. Ben Johns, the sport’s biggest star, estimates that he earned $250,000 in 2021, and as entrepreneurs latch on to the game, more money is coming.

Generally, people play because they like the games democratic ethos — that is the reason mostly given. And it’s easier to learn and play than tennis. “You sign your name up on the board, and you have a blast,” said Sherry Scheer, a former tennis coach and a pickleball senior pro, told the New Yorker in July. “Pickleball doubles partners tap paddles between every point, win or lose, and skilled players have tended to be generous about playing with less skilled players,” the article goes on to state.

But tennis players do much of the same. As do Padel. It all begs the question of whether Pickleball survive the snappier shots, the frenetic, close-range volleys (known as “hand battles”) and the ambitions of the celebrities and entrepreneurs. Or will tennis history just repeat?

It’s a close line call in Manhattan. A petition to stop pick-up Pickleball has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures. Its backers include the influential Greenwich Village Little League, and at least four other downtown sports leagues. “The park used to be teeming with kids playing basketball and football and tag and chase. Now they’ve stopped going. It’s all adults playing pickleball,” a local parent Allan Trub, told Gothamist. “It’s not a coexistence, it’s a complete and utter takeover.”

Ben Johns, the United States’ most famous Pickleballer, started out playing tennis.

POSTCARD FROM TURIN

A city nestled in the country’s Piedmont region bears fruitful, and creative, shot-making

Before September, not too many pundits and fans talk about the season-ending ATP Finals, but after the U.S. Open, it’s about the only topic on the websites and podcasts. Established in 1970 — just two years after the start of the Open Era — the penultimate tournament began life as the ITF’s Masters Grand Prix, a showpiece event between the best players on the men’s tour. But the tournament didn’t count for any ranking points — a string of contention. In 1990, the ATP took over, changed the name and put at stake the same number of points as winning one of the four Grand Slams of the year. The ATP Finals were held at London’s O2 arena for more than a decade but in 2021 Turin won the bid for host city. With the top-eight singles players and top eight doubles teams of the past 11 months competing, it’s a fight to the finish. Last year at Torino’s Pala Alpitour, Rafael Nadal went in as the favourite, but Caspar Ruud dug deep only to lose in the final to Novak Djokovic. Veteran player Rajeev Ram paired with the UK’s Joe Salisbury to take the doubles title.  

2023 has been another bruising year with no clear contenders, with the top men playing musical rankings, switching numbers every week. Carlos Alcaraz and Djokovic have traded Grand Slams, and the two “carrot-tops” — Jannik Sinner and Andrey Rublev — duelled mightily in Shanghai. Despite good showings at the U.S. Open, Americans Taylor Fritz, Francis Tiafoe and Tommy Paul, have fallen just out of the top eight. Rudd is back, as is Holger Rune — and the newly freed Boris Becker as his… coach. Djokovic didn’t drop a set in his 2022 run and tied Federer in number of ATP Finals won at six apiece; he could surpass another one of Federer’s record this year. But Daniil Medvedev always loves playing the foil to anyone’s dreams; he is lurking, a permanent spoiler.  

CIRCOLO DELLA STAMPA SPORTING CLUB AND TORINO’S PALA ALPITOUR

London usually wins the “exquisite historical venue” prize for its tennis-playing elite — hello Wimbledon and Queens Club — but the O2, a 20,000-person arena, didn’t offer much ambiance for end-of-season spectators. Torino’s Pala Alpitour isn’t much older than the O2 but at only 12,000 seats, it’s certainly more intimate. With a futuristic sheen of stainless steel and a 3D shaped Prism structure, the acoustics are also top notch.  

As a practice venue, the boys can’t ask for much more than Circolo della Stampa, the one-time recreational association of the Turin newspaper of the same name. Once considered among the most important and luxurious sports venues in Europe with ten tennis courts, a stadium field, a swimming pool and clubhouse, Circolo della Stampa opened in 1939 as the Juventus Tennis and Football Club. Circolo della Stampa, through its many years and transitions, has held many international tennis events, including six editions of the Davis Cup from 1948 to 1971, the 1961 men’s clay Internazionali d’Italia, (now in Rome) and the 1966 Federation Cup, in which Billie Jean King took home both singles and doubles titles defeating West Germany.  

WHAT TO SEE

Despite its world-class museums, including the Museo Nazionale del Cinema — dedicated to cinema history — its palaces and castles and the famous Shroud of Turin in the Duomo di Torino, one particular location is familiar to most any Torino tourist: the Gran Madre di Dio, whose steps the three Mini Coopers raced down during 1969’s The Italian Job, considered one of the best British movies ever made. After, or in lieu of, a day of tennis, more Italian Job sites await, including the roof of the Fiat Lingotto Factory, Gianni Agnelli’s monument to Italian industrialism, the and the oval-shaped UNESCO Word Heritage Palazzo Carignano, the Louvre-inspired baroque former house of Parliament. Don’t care about Mini Coopers or Michael Caine? The Superga Basilica offers breath-taking views of the city and pays homage to the tragic plane crash of the Grande Torino football team, while the Parco del Valentino is home to the Valentino Castle along the Po River.  

SHOP

Turin, at the heart of Northern Italy’s industrial and farming regions — think Fiat and Olivetti, has lots of industrial and farming heirs. Therefore, luxury is in the DNA. Expect hand-crafted, homemade everything, not to mention fresh. Via Roma is entire road made up of the refined facades of prestigious Italian and international fashion brands, including Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton, as well as Rinascente and the ubiquitous Eataly, except this branch is the mothership. For local style, the Via Garibaldi — one of the longest pedestrian-only shopping streets in Europe — features a mix of small men’s and women’s clothing boutiques, emerging Italian designers and of course, the Juventus store.  Lastly, if Alcaraz or Djokovic are out of the tournament by Saturday, the Balon Flea Market promises the perfect vintage Prada or antique blue Olivetti for your collection(s).  

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

Turin is renowned for culinary delights ranging from traditional Piedmontese cuisine — think tagliolini pasta, Salsiccia di Bra and Torta di nocciole — to contemporary Italian dining. All Court Tennis Club will have its annual ATP Finals Play and Watch welcome dinner at Madama Piola, known from its unpretentious, yet gratifying meals. Cianci Piola’s slogan “life is short, so free up the tables” describes this very popular, yet cosy bistro that puts a slight spin on Tajarin al tartufo. Instead of catering to the Peroni swillers, Baladin Open Garden aims to make Italian craft beer enthusiasts out of the northern Italians, as well as convert them to seafood delights, like duck and mussels. After dinner, Caffè Al Bicerin, which has been around for 260 years, is famous for its eponymous and historic drink:  a mix of coffee, chocolate, and cream; Gelateria Pepino is the Caffè Al Bicerin of Italian gelato shops. Lastly, in-between matches, Mercato Centrale offers a variety of food stalls and vendors for “panino con la porchetta” (roast pork sandwich) and “frittelle di riso” (rice fritters). 

SLEEP

In case you missed it, All Court Tennis Club is hosting a Play and Watch in Turin (see above link) and putting its guests up at the Hotel Victoria, a pet-loving, bicycle-friendly, family run hotel with uniquely decorated rooms, a spa and weekly cocktail hour. Other options are as rich and varied as Northern Italy, itself. NH Collection Torino Piazza Carlina offers a newish,  stylish setting in a renovated 17th-century building, while TownHouse 70 is tres chic in Turin’s heart. Hotel Urbani and Hotel Serenella are the economical, yet suitable options.  Splashing out is saved for the castle-turned-Castello di Guarene hotel just outside Turin in the Piedmont countryside. 

POSTCARD FROM SHANGHAI

China is back on the calendar for the men’s and women’s tours.

The last player to win the China Open was Dominic Thiem — yes, that Dominic Theim, the one who has been injured since his personal best 2020 season. Now, the Austrian is nowhere to be found either in Beijing or in the draw of the Asia-swing’s penultimate tournament, The Rolex Shanghai Masters. In his place, however, are many other first-time players, including Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune — the kids who have come of age since the last Shanghai Masters— and they have committed to the event exclusively created by the ATP World Tour and the Chinese Tennis Association to develop the market for tennis in China. The Shanghai Masters has gone through several iterations, but has always attracted top players to the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, including two-time champion Roger Federer, three-time champion Andy Murray and four-time champion Novak Djokovic. But with Djokovic taking a break from the tour and the draw increased to 96 players from 56, it’s literally any player’s gambit, although defending champion and U.S. Open finalist Daniil Medvedev is lurking.

Qi Zhong Stadium

SHANGHAI QIZHONG FOREST SPORTS CITY ARENA

Although possibly a bit unexpected, over the past 20 years, tennis has become one of the most popular sports in China and the third-most watched on television — behind football and basketball. The Chinese Tennis Association has also poured a significant sum into the sport, resulting in an estimated 14 million people playing, up from 1 million in 1988 when tennis returned to the Olympics. Development on Qi Zhong Stadium, commenced in 2003, when the city needed a world-class stadium to match its tennis ambitions. The stadium is known for its roof, a steel retractable pinwheel, which opens and closes in a spiral with eight sliding petal-shaped pieces resembling a blooming magnolia — Shanghai’s official city flower. Each winner of the eighth ATP Masters of the year receives a Royal Selangor Pewter trophy, symbolising the roof of Qi Zhong Stadium — the perpetual trophy.

The Shanghai Racquet Club

WHAT TO DO IN SHANGAI

After stops in Chengdu, Zhuhai, and Beijing, Shanghai, which literally means the “City on the Sea,” is a colourful, historic and more laid-back feast of activity on the Yangzi River Delta and the East China Sea. The beating heart of Shanghai is The Bund with plenty of quick, touristy walk-bys, including the popular Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower, as well as the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre reflecting the status quo in the first 30 years of the People’s Republic. Feeling inspired after a day at Qi Zhong? Check out the Shanghai Racquet Club just a few miles away. Among the amenities at this Deng Xiaoping-era club are six indoor and seven outdoor tennis courts with Har-Tru Clay surfaces. Resident international tennis pros run a full complement of tennis programmes, including round robins and academies. If a small red paddle and a tiny white ball beckons, play the sport of Chinese champions at the Qinlao Village Table Tennis Club or the Sunshine Table Tennis Club.

The Westgate ShiMall

SHOP

For the real stuff, head to the Westgate ShiMall, Plaza 66, and the Jing An Kerry Centre, where prestige brands like Prada, Karl Lagerfeld and Pinko line the aisles. A stone’s throw away, Xintiandi Street is dotted with Chinese luxury brands and wine bars, where designer outfits like Shanghai Tang, Uma Wang and Ban Xiaoxue reign supreme.  Off the yellow-brick road, luxury without the price tag (well-crafted fakes) is available at the AP Plaza’s Xinyang Fashion Market. Make sure to bring cash, download WeChat and prepare to bargain hard.

Making dumplings

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

The first restaurant/bar to open on The Bund overlooking the Huangou River and Pudong, M on the Bund is a cross-section of expats, locals, tourists, consular staff, journalists, writers, musicians, film stars and royals. Glam is an equally cosmopolitan lounge bar with small plates and Asian dishes with western influences; and Jean Georges Shanghai, a fusion of French and Asian flavours with impeccable service and a stunning view of the Bund. Shanghai is famous for its traditional soup dumplings (Xiao Long Bao), and nowhere else serves them better than the Guyi Garden Restaurant located in a 16th century mansion where Xiao Long Bao reportedly originated. Other must-mentions to survive the pandemic: Fu 1088, a hidden gem offering a traditional Shanghainese menu in a Shikumen mansion; Hakkasan, an elegant trendily doffed restaurant known for its modern Cantonese cuisine; and Yongfoo Elite, a purveyor of European and Asian fusion dishes set in a historic villa with a stunning garden. Top off the evening with a visit to the Peace Hotel Jazz Bar, where the primarily octogenarian “Old Jazz Band” plays 1920s riffs reflective of Shanghai’s “Paris of the Orient” days in an Art-Deco, speakeasy-themed lounge.

A Shikumen style house in Shanghai

SLEEP

The air rights in Shanghai either rival or surpass those of New York, because like the Western City, the only place to build is up — and the sky (above the smog) is where visitors find the best places to sleep. The J Hotel, located in the top 26 floors of the Shanghai Tower, boasts 165 rooms, including 34 suites and staterooms of up to 380 square metres, making them some of the city’s highest and most spacious options nestled into the tower’s spiral, with a view at every angle.

Despite being a part of an international chain, the Langham Shanghai Xintiandi nevertheless promises a sophisticated getaway in the heart of the city’s entertainment hub replete with borderline “yán jìn de” artwork, such as Qu Guangci’s “Forbidden Angels”, made up of large figures that wear Mao suits and imitate the gestures of classic Western figurative sculptures. 

An urban sanctuary in one of the Xuhui District’s last remaining cluster of shikumen townhouses, the Capella Shanghai, an all-luxury villa hotel not only protects and evolves the city’s cultural legacy, but also offers guests a nod to 1930s Shanghai.

Lastly, the Shangri-La in the city’s upscale Jing An district offers luxury and affordability, with perks such as an extra night’s stay, should the tennis go long, and free breakfast for strength to fight the Chinese crowds hustling into Qi Zhong stadium.

POSTCARD FROM VANCOUVER

Central Vancouver

Federer and Company bring the Laver Cup Tour to North America

While he won’t be playing, his majesty Roger Federer will be present at the fifth edition of the event that he and super agent Tony Godsick founded in 2018: the Laver Cup. The 20-time Grand Slam champion will take to the “black court” —  the competition’s signature surface — to commemorate the one-year anniversary of his last competitive match. But to see Roger, fans have to stay until the very last match of the last day. He’ll also stick around for a Q&A with Jim Courier, the first person to interview Roger after Ellie Goulding serenaded his departing moments at London’s O2 arena last year. So far, Roger’s last doubles partner, Rafael Nadal, remains mum on his commitment to Team Europe. But Russian-born Andrey Rublev (ATP No. 6) Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime (ATP No. 9) and Americans Taylor Fritz (ATP No. 10) and Frances Tiafoe (ATP No. 12) will be there, fresh off the U.S. Open. Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe have committed to captain Teams Europe and World, respectively.

Laver Cup Team Europe

The Rogers Arena during the Laver Cup

THE ROGERS ARENA

No, it’s just a happy coincidence and is not named after the Fed! Rogers Arena was built in 1995 to replace Pacific Coliseum as Vancouver’s primary indoor sports facility. Designed specifically for the NBA’s Vancouver Grizzlies (before the team moved to Memphis in 2001), Rogers Arena  — named after Rogers Communication, a cable/internet company  — now holds all home hockey games for the Vacouver Canucks. It also hosted all hockey events during the 2010 Winter Olympics.    

The Vancouver Lawn Tennis + Badminton Club

VANCOUVER LAWN TENNIS AND BADMINTON CLUB

Since all courts at Roger’s Arena (ahem… we’ve renamed it for the event) are spoken for, the nearby Vancouver Lawn Tennis & Badminton Club (VCLT & BC) is the next best place to hit a few balls. Founded in 1897 — when the city of Vancouver was barely on the map — the VCLT & BC provided a home for the pioneers of both Van City and Canadian Racquet Sports. Originally located in the West End, the club first featured grass and cinder courts, in addition to a croquet lawn — as was fashionable in the day. In 1914, The Club moved to land bought from the Canadian Pacific Railway and added nine tennis courts and four grass courts, expanding again in 1970 with indoor and “roof” tennis courts. Guests are welcome at the club, but like many other historic clubs, each article of visible clothing, excluding shoes, may not have more than 10 percent colour, including hats and warm-up suits — not especially sporting for a city also known as Raincouver.

If you’re looking for a playing partner in Van City, we can hook you up! Just drop your details below and our concierge team will be in touch.

The Gastown Steam Clock in Vancouver

MUST SEE IN VANCOUVER

Roger couldn’t have asked for a better place to hold a tennis tournament than Roger’s Arena. Located near everything interesting in Van City, some quick attractions include the Marine Building, an exquisite Art-Deco stand-in for superhero comic book skyscrapers, such as the Baxter Building in two Fantastic Four films and Superman’s The Daily Planet, as well as the Gastown Steam Clock, one of the world’s few working steam clocks in the Victorian Gastown district.

When not playing a scavenger hunt to find a seat in the vast array of Rogers, the VanDusen Garden’s Elizabethan Hedge Maze — made out of 3,000 pyramidal cedars — provides potentially endless entertainment. It’s located in VanDusen Botanical Garden. And if the seemingly never ending rain keeps falling, the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coastal Art features traditional and contemporary art from First Nations and other cultures.

SHOP

For a hit of retail therapy, Vancouver has all the iconic Canadian brands (Canada Goose, Roots, Reigning Champ, Herschel Supply Co., Hudson’s Bay Company, Sorel and Raised By Wolves) at several shopping centres in the city, most notably the CF Pacific Center or in Gastown.

A stroll down Robson Street is another sure bet for an afternoon paroozing the city’s high end boutiques. Lastly, nothing beats the Granville Island Public Market for some tasty Canadian cheese, bread and meats over a glass of red.

A Salmon n’ Bannock spread

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

In Vancouver, Indian food is otherwise known as Indigenous food, and Van City has the best native places in the North American Northwest. Renowned for its contemporary Native cuisine, Salmon n’ Bannock “feeds your spirit” with organic and free range game meats, as well as fresh vegetables and Bannock, a pan-fried Indigenous bread made with basic pantry staples. Salmon n’ Bannock is situated on territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, who also comprise the majority of its staff.

AnnaLena received its Michelin star last October for its  monthly tasting menus (called “chapters”) carefully constructed with a focus on local artisanal products, including, walla walla onions from Klippers Organics in Cawston, and steelhead trout from Lois Lake.

Situated along the Burrard Inlet next to Canada Place, Miku Waterfront first introduced Aburi-style cuisine to Vancouver in 2008 by combining light Japanese blow torch searing with fresh Pacific Northwest fish and other flavours. After dinner, cruise Granville Street downtown or Gastown’s cobblestone streets for a night cap, where the Shameful Tiki Room offers Polynesian flair and exotic cocktails.

The Burrard Hotel, Vancouver

SLEEP

Vancouver is the second most expensive city in Canada and the cost of living is relatively high, so the Canadian dollar doesn’t stretch as far as in other Western cities. Yet, look hard enough and value for price is around the corner. The Rosewood Hotel Georgia, a historic and opulent hotel in the heart of downtown, is a short walk from renowned Stanley Park, art galleries, world-class museums, boutiques and the city’s finest dining, including its own, Hawksworth Restaurant. Plus, book two nights and the third is free.

The Opus Hotel is a chic boutique hotel in Yaletown known for its vibrant design, excellent service, and proximity to trendy bars and shops. The Loden Hotel focuses on wellness and sustainability, including complimentary town cruiser bicycles and a nightly turndown service.

Lastly, the Burrard is a converted motor hotel from 1956 that exudes character from every joist, railing and sightline. It also features extras like free WiFi, Nespresso machines in all 72 rooms, and an insider city guide.

All Court Tennis Club partners with luxury resorts and hotels around the world, providing members with unique benefits such as preferential rates and perks.  If you’d like to become a complimentary member of the All Court Tennis Club (and we’d certainly like that!) visit our membership page here.

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A TENNIS UMPIRE?

The New York Times suggests computers, not people should call lines. How can Cyclops possibly interpret the other essential rules of tennis.

Two days after the midpoint of the Wimbledon fortnight — following a weekend of a few questionable line calls — the New York Times wrote “At Wimbledon, the Human Eye Keeps Dropping the Ball,” questioning the legitimacy of line judges at Wimbledon. It argued that perhaps Hawk-Eye Live, an electronic line calling system, could have saved several players their matches, including Andy Murray, Bianca Andreescu and Venus Williams, among others. True, the technology of Hawk-Eye, which uses cameras to capture the bounce of every ball from multiple angles analyses the images to depict the ball’s trajectory and impact points, does leave a fairly small margin of error (unless the situation is clay, in which the ball leaves a mark). But how much does the computer really know about the other aspects of line judging — or the rules of tennis for that matter — or how to apply the rules in certain situations.

Test your knowledge in 25 questions of the court, the code violations and tennis’ other strange conditions without an open book, on the first try and with a ninety percent pass rate, and we’ll find you some officials’ swag. Don’t pass, and you’ll get a full-length recording of the irritating computerized and strangely child-like voice calling “out” twenty times for your listening pleasure.

THE COURT

1. How long is a regulation tennis court?
a) 75 feet
b) 73 feet
c) 78 feet
d) 80 feet

2. How wide is a regulation singles court?
a) 27 feet
b) 25 feet
c) 30 feet
d) 28 feet

3. How high is the centre net?
a) 3 feet
b) 3.5 feet
c) 4 feet
d) 3.25 feet

4. For singles matches, if a doubles net is used, then the net is supported by two “singles sticks,” each of which is how high?
a) 3 feet
b) 3.5 feet
c) 4 feet
d) 3.25 feet

5. Other than the centre service line and centre mark, which is two inches, the other lines of the court are how wide?
a) 2 inches
b) 2.5 inches
c) between 1 and 3 inches
d) between 1.5 and 3.5 inches

6. How wide is the baseline?
a) 2 inches
b) 2.5 inches
c) between 1 and 3 inches
d) between 1 and 4 inches

THE BALL

7. Which colour of balls are allowed for official use in ITF-sanctioned tournaments?
a) yellow only
b) white and yellow
c) choice of the tournament director
e) white only

8. How many balls are used during a professional match?
a) One can of four
b) Two cans of three
c) Three cans of three
d) One can of three

9. What happens if a ball gets broken during play?
a) the player hitting the winning shot wins the point
b) play is stopped and the ball is replaced immediately; the point is replayed
c) play continues until the ball disintegrates
d) the player hitting the winning shot loses the point because he destroyed the ball

10. What happens if a ball goes soft during play?
a) play is stopped and the ball is replaced immediately; the point is replayed
b) play continues until the ball can be replaced; all shots stand
c) the player who discovers the soft ball and stops the point wins the point
d) the player who discovers the soft ball and stops the point loses the point

11. When do the players receive new balls during a professional match?
a) after the first set, the second set, and every subsequent set
b) after the first nine games and thereafter, every seventh game
c) after the first seven games and thereafter, every ninth game
d) during every fifth change of ends

PLAYER CONDUCT

12. If a player wearing a cap returns a ball and the cap falls off during the point causing a distraction, their opponent receives:
a) the point
b) a let with first serve
c) point replay
d) tough luck

13. If an returner hits a ball and it clips the net between the singles stick and the net post and lands in his opponent’s singles court, the ball is:
a) good and still in play
b) out
c) to be replayed
d) a let and first serve

14. If a player one a grass courts takes her racquet and deliberately swats the grass or hits the ground, she receives:
a) applause
b) an automatic code violation warning for hitting a live object
c) an automatic point penalty for hitting a live object
d) a reprimand from the chair umpire

15. If it starts to rain and a 15-minute rain delay is called, when the players return to court, how long does their warm-up last?
a) no warm-up, return to play
b) a full five-minute warm-up
c) serves only
d) a three-minute warm-up

16. “Gamesmanship” or “unsportsmanlike behavior” can be called for which of the following?
a) bouncing the ball past the allotted service time
b) making a gesture while approaching the net
c) taking a long bathroom break
d) all of the above

17. Players receive how much time for a change of ends?
a) 180 seconds
b) 120 seconds
c) 60 seconds
d) 90 seconds

18. How many challenges to a “wrong” call does each player receiver per set?
a) five
b) three
c) unlimited
d) three, plus one additional if match goes to a tiebreak

OFFICIAL CONDUCT

19. If a player challenges a call and not satisfied with the chair umpire’s ruling, calls the match referee, who has the final say?
a) the referee
b) the tournament director
c) VAT
d) the chair umpire

20. If a line judge wants to call the ball “in” during a tight point, he:
a) points his hand in the direction the ball landed
b) points his arms down, fingers touching at tips
c) shouts “in”
d) places his foot in the direction in which the ball lands

21. A ball is deemed “in” as long as…?
a) the ball comes within one inch of the line, inside or outside of it
b) any part of the ball touches any part of the line
c) the ball falls squarely on the line
d) the ball falls in the court without touching the line

22. On clay, when can a ball mark inspection be made?
a) when a player requests it at any point
b) when the chair umpire cannot determine the call with certainty
c) when the line judge has not seen the ball land
d) when the two balls have made marks near to each other

23. A line umpire calls a ball “out” and then the player argues that the ball was good. Is the chair umpire allowed to overrule the line umpire?
a) yes, the player’s opinion matters most
b) no, a chair umpire must never overrule as the result of player protest
c) yes, the chair umpire has overrule over all line umpires
d) no, the referee must be called

24. A foot-fault is called when…?
a) a player’s foot touches the line at any point during the service motion
b) a player’s foot touches the line after the ball was served
c) a player’s foot touches the line after the initiation of the motion and before the ball is hit.
d) if a player does not touch the line during the serve

25. Is a line umpire allowed to change the call after the chair umpire has announced the score?
a) no, changes are not allowed after the score is called
b) yes, if a line umpire realises a mistake, a correction should be made as soon as possible
c) yes, especially if the player has issued a protest
d) no, all calls are final

THE COURT (ANSWERS):

1. How long is a regulation tennis court?
c) 78 feet

2. How wide is a regulation singles court?
a) 27 feet

3. How high is the centre net?
a) 3 feet

4. For singles matches, if a doubles net is used, then the net is supported by two “singles sticks,” each of which is how high?
b) 3.5 feet

5. Other than the centre service line and centre mark, which is two inches, the other lines of the court are how wide?
c) between 1 and 3 inches

6. How wide is the baseline?
d) between 1 and 4 inches

THE BALL (ANSWERS):

7. Which colour of balls are allowed for official use in ITF-sanctioned tournaments?
b) white and yellow

8. How many balls are used during a professional match?
b) Two cans of three

9. What happens if a ball gets broken during play?
b) play is stopped and the ball is replaced immediately; the point is replayed

10. What happens if a ball goes soft during play?
b) play continues until the ball can be replaced; all shots stand

11. When do the players receive new balls during a professional match?
b) after the first nine games and thereafter, every seventh game

PLAYER CONDUCT (ANSWERS):

12. If a player wearing a cap returns a ball and the cap falls off during the point causing a distraction, their opponent receives:
b) a let with first serve

13. If an returner hits a ball and it clips the net between the singles stick and the net post and lands in his opponent’s singles court, the ball is:
a) good and still in play

14. If a player one a grass courts takes her racquet and deliberately swats the grass or hits the ground, she receives:
c) an automatic point penalty for hitting a live object

15. If it starts to rain and a 15-minute rain delay is called, when the players return to court, how long does their warm-up last?
d) a three-minute warm-up

16. “Gamesmanship” or “unsportsmanlike behavior” can be called for which of the following?
d) all of the above

17. Players receive how much time for a change of ends?
d) 90 seconds

18. How many challenges to a “wrong” call does each player receiver per set?
d) three, plus one additional if match goes to a tiebreak

OFFICIAL CONDUCT (ANSWERS):

19. If a player challenges a call and not satisfied with the chair umpire’s ruling, calls the match referee, who has the final say?
d) the chair umpire

20. If a line judge wants to call the ball “in” during a tight point, he:
b) points his arms down, fingers touching at tips

21. A ball is deemed “in” as long as…?
b) any part of the ball touches any part of the line

22. On clay, when can a ball mark inspection be made?
b) when the chair umpire cannot determine the call with certainty

23. A line umpire calls a ball “out” and then the player argues that the ball was good. Is the chair umpire allowed to overrule the line umpire?
b) no, a chair umpire must never overrule as the result of player protest

24. A foot-fault is called when…?
c) a player’s foot touches the line after the initiation of the motion and before the ball is hit.

25. Is a line umpire allowed to change the call after the chair umpire has announced the score?
b) yes, if a line umpire realises a mistake, a correction should be made as soon as possible

POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK

The crowd at Arthur Ashe Arena in Flushing, Queens.

As we welcome the fourth and final Slam of the year!

New York City is a global hub of commerce, entertainment, culture and of course, tennis… with the introduction of lawn tennis to Long Island in 1874 adding to the sport’s presence and the city’s vibrancy. The United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the USTA) held its U.S. National Singles Championships in Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1881. These championships moved across the Eastern U.S. until 1915 when they settled in Forest Hills. The West Side Tennis Club built their Forest Hills Stadium in 1923, which became the championship’s venue until the Billie Jean King Tennis Center opened in 1978.

The US Open is the last of the four Grand Slam tournaments of the year and begins on the last Monday of August, spanning two weeks and including the US Labor Day weekend.

The grass courts at the West Side Tennis Club, the original club of the U.S. championships.

THE WEST SIDE TENNIS CLUB

The West Side Tennis Club originated in Manhattan’s Central Park in 1892 with 13 tennis players renting land for three clay courts and a clubhouse. Over the years, it moved locations several times, eventually settling in Forest Hills in 1912. The club played a pivotal role in advocating for the U.S. Open to be held in New York, arguing that tennis had become a national heritage and should expand. In 2013, the club faced the threat of losing Forest Hills Stadium to developers but managed to preserve and improve it for tennis and music events.

While our US Open Play & Watch event is sold out, and so too our epic hospitality packages, we do have two tennis only tickets for Thursday 31st August. First come first serve. Simply drop some basic details below for our concierge team to get in touch.

*2nd round men’s / women’s day session tickets to Louis Armstrong Stadium from 11am. (seats in section 11, row V).  

The High Line on New York’s West Side.

MUST SEE IN NYC

The question isn’t what is there to do in New York. It’s “what isn’t there to do” in New York. A player favourite for the BJK Center’s proximity to Manhattan, most players are lured to the lux hotels in Midtown where managers give rates for endorsements. Unlike Wimbledon, there are no nearby tennis museum to visit, but museums abound in New York — art ones, such as the Whitney, the Met, MoMA and the Guggenheim, especially.

For a day outside, the hugely popular High Line takes visitors from the gallery-packed meatpacking district to Hudson Yards — former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s dream site for the 2012 Olympics (started before London won the honour). Rather than the 9/11 Museum, check out the miraculously preserved Trinity Churchyard a few blocks north of the Battery. It has its own tribute to the day that changed American history. But above all else, don’t miss the Explorers Club, a glimpse into one of New York’s Gilded Age social clubs.

Tennis players wearing Reigning Champ sportswear.

SHOP

Fifth Avenue still has its mainstays — Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s and Rockefeller Center — but the cool kids usually head down to SoHo, the Lower East Side or DUMBO, Brooklyn for their fashion finds. Rowing Blazers, a cheeky take on American Prep on Rivington Street founded by a former U.S National crew member, features everything from wool Rowing Blazers with grosgrain trim to Arthur Ashe Polos to croquet-striped rugby shirts.

For some high end retail therapy and a one-stop-shop for all designer needs, head to Intermix on Madison Ave. You’ll find the denim of dreams at Agolde, everyday sneakers with a pop from Golden Goose, the dream garden party garms from Love Shack Fancy and a boho chic brunch fit at Isabelle Marrant.

Aimé Leon Dore is a New York-based fashion brand founded by Teddy Santis in 2014. The brand draws inspiration from Santis’s Greek heritage and New York City upbringing, which results in a unique blend of classic and modern design elements. Their Soho store serves great coffee and is worth a visit, even if simply for its classy interiors.

For the second consecutive year, we are proud to announce, the renowned Canadian streetwear brand, Reigning Champ as the official sponsor of our New York event. They will once again provide our members with top-notch tennis apparel. Check out their online store for trendy tennis and streetwear. 

A menu at Russ + Daughters deli on the Lower East Side.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

Looking for another place where the great men of New York drank? Walk no farther than the Radio Wave Building downtown and Patent Pending where Nikola Tesla lived, invented and drank — apparently. For eats, there are tried-and-true spots, such as the French bistro Balthazar,  American farm-to-table Blue Ribbon, or the meaty Keens Steakhouse. New spots to try out include American-Mediterranean downtown fave Jack’s Wife Frida, Jewish deli and dine-in Russ & Daughters and the Persian Nasrin’s Kitchen. Old-school or cutting-edge, antique speakeasy or minimalist chic, wrap up with a night-cap at Bemelman’s in the Carlyle Hotel.

A room at the Ace Hotel in downtown New York.

SLEEP

Next to DC, New York is quite possibly the most transient city in the great United States, with its consistent flow of financial wiz-bangs, make-it-or-break-it creative types and, of course, giraffe-necked tourists, usually found around Times Square. Hotels usually fall into two categories: large-scale corporate chains or small, unique boutique. Remember, AirBnB is usually illegal here, and if not, often more expensive than hotels. For quick, no-muss, no-fuss to the Open, stay in Midtown, but on the East Side, closest to the 7 train or the Queens Midtown tunnel for a fast taxi. A steal for the location.

The Beaux-Arts Benjamin offers spacious rooms and suites and the coveted New York City terrace.

For, a quieter stay is the Refinery Hotel, the reinterpretation of the Colony Hotel, with a rooftop bar, 24-hour concierge and more than 100 years of history. The best downtown boutiques include The Mercer, the Bowery, the James and the Broome.

First choice for All Court Tennis Club members is Ace Hotel in Manhattan, Known for its unique design, it various room options, a farm-to-table restaurant, lively lobby and rooftop bar with skyline views.

POSTCARD FROM LAUSANNE

Now that the sparks have left SW19, European players head back to the safety of clay before summer’s end brings on the hard courts

In 2016, after 33 years away from the soaring Swiss Alps and its imperial pedigree, the WTA returned to Gstaad to join its ATP brother tournament, the Swiss Open Gstaad. But after stints in Lugano, Geneva, and Lucerne — as well as a name change from the Swiss Open to the European Open — the Ladies Open Lausanne finally settled in the Olympic capital in 2019.

TENNIS CLUB STADE-LAUSANNE

Situated in Vidy, the central neighborhood of Lausanne, the Tennis Club Stade-Lausanne clubhouse was built to overlook a central court, on which champions such as Rod Laver, Sergio Tacchini and Nicola Pietrangeli played. In the late 1960s, the Lausanne Tennis Association (ALT), combined the three main Lausanne tennis clubs (TC Lausanne Sports, TC Stade-Lausanne and TC Montchoisi) and the courts increased to nineteen. From 1984 to 1992, the club hosted the Ebel Classic, a men’s international tournament and continued to expand to meet the growing demands of professional tennis and become a national training centre. The club aimed to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the festivities, including the Ladies Open. Everything resumed in 2021.

MUST SEE IN LAUSSANE

Lausanne has a vibrant above-ground and underground cultural scene with numerous museums, art galleries, theatres, and music venues. The city also hosts the Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival (LUFF) in October and the Lausanne Festival of Lights (Lausanne Lumières) across November and December.

If you’re in town for the tennis, grab a coffee and take a stroll over to Collection de l’Art Brut on Av. des Bergières. The gallery showcases works created by self-taught artists, often considered to be outside the boundaries of mainstream art, providing a fascinating insight into the creative expressions of individuals with no formal artistic training or affiliation.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

Lausanne is known for its vibrant culinary scene, with a range of restaurants, cafés, and bistros offering French, Swiss and international cuisine. Oh, and you’ll always find plenty of fresh fish from the nearby lakes on the menu. Lausanne is located in the heart of the Lavaux vineyards, so if you spot a bottle of Chasselas on the menu, opt for that, it won’t have travelled far.

Opened in 1780 by a local wine merchant, Pinte Besson, which is located in Lausanne’s Old Town, is the go-to for hearty Swiss dishes, such as cheese fondue, raclette, and sausage, served in a cosy and rustic atmosphere — complete with vaulted ceilings and faceted glass windows.

La Table d’Edgard, located in the Lausanne Palace hotel, is run by Chef Edgard Bovier who earned a Michelin star for his mastery of Mediterranean cuisine. For a slow morning in Lausanne City Centre, Café du Grütli has serves delicious breakfast and brunch options from croissants and pastries to savoury dishes like eggs Benedict.

SHOP

In the heart of the Switzerland, the country at the crossroads of Europe, lies Lausanne’s historic Old Town, known as La Cité, a charming district with cobblestone streets. Les Boutiques du Château, situated near the Lausanne Cathedral is where you’ll find Memories, a stylish boutique stocking all the hottest Swiss streetwear brands.

Looking for something a little more high-end? Keep strolling past the Swiss young-guns catching up on their lunch-break, and you’ll soon arrive at Louis Vuitton and The Kooples. Enjoy some casual window shopping, or pick up something stylish to wear to the Ladies finals.  

SLEEP

Above most everything, Lausanne is known for its breath-taking natural beauty and picture-perfect vistas. While Switzerland has a reputation for being expensive, the country’s range of fastidiously clean and well-appointed accommodations suit various preferences and budgets.Beau-Rivage Palace offers 168 elegant rooms, a spa and beautifully landscaped gardens on the shores of Lake Geneva. Evolving roughly at the same rate of the city, Lausanne Palace features a range of rooms, including some with balconies and decorative fireplaces, while four restaurants, including a Japanese eatery, and three bars provide refreshment after a day of tennis.

The budget-friendly Hotel Continental Lausanne sits in the city centre and above all, grants visitors simple and clean rooms, easy access to public transportation and walking distance of shops, restaurants and most importantly, the tennis.

Lastly, the  Hôtel Angleterre & Résidence is spread over four house-like, English-style pavilions on the coast of Lake Geneva. Nights at the Piazza dell’Accademia, the terrace of L’Accademia restaurant, take on the air of an Italian square where courteous staff circle the tables with traditional Italian dishes prepared with fresh, seasonal products.

POSTCARD FROM WASHINGTON DC

A view of the Washington Monument from the Main Mall in DC.

The skinny on tennis in the capital now that the hardcourt season is in full swing.

The Citi Open concluded in Washington, D.C. this weekend, showcasing an exhilarating display of talent and determination on the court. Coco Gauff would emerge victorious on home soil, capturing her first WTA 500 title and marking her second WTA title overall. On the men’s side, Dan Evans clinched his maiden ATP 500 title; the first Briton to secure victory in the tournament since Tim Henman in 2003. At 33 years old, this is Evan’s second ATP title.

Tennis aside for a moment, here’s a word to the wise: that joke about DC being built on a swamp — figuratively or literally — is no longer legit. DC has been on firm footing for more than 200 years, and in the past 20 has become trendy, as has its tennis scene, thanks in no small part to the godfather of tennis Mark Ein. Ein, who bought the tournament formerly known as the Washington Open in 2019, revived the relatively small, very American men’s event on the well-loved courts of Rock Creek Park  and turned it into an ATP/WTA 500 complete with a fresh logo, refurbished grounds and an official spot on the U.S. Open warmup series. Nick Kyrgios won the championship twice (2019 and 2022) and Jessica Pegula, who has two WTA titles to her name, can count DC among them. Native Washingtonian Hailey Baptiste, a product of the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation (WTEF), is one to watch on the circuit too.

The Rock Creek Park Tennis Center in Washington, DC.

THE ROCK CREEK PARK TENNIS CENTER

Washington has no shortage of exclusive clubs for the politically and socially elite, although the last true tennis aficionado at the White House was George H.W. Bush. Bush never officially played at Rock Creek — Camp David was more his style — but he might have if Mark Ein had swooped in to save the decaying centre in the 90s. Now known as the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center — named, like everything else in DC, after a philanthropic political heavyweight — the Rock Creek Tennis Center started life as little more than a clay court and 50 seats on either side. But when Arthur Ashe and his agent Donald Dell decided they wanted to hold more than an exhibition match before the Open, Ashe mandated “no country clubs.” Rock Creek made do with “tents and private outhouses,” according to Dell, until Mark Ein, a native of Chevy Chase, a former ball boy (back when it was the Sovran Bank Classic) and a DC cheerleader, bought the tournament outright in 2019. Since then, Ein has put several fresh coats of paint on the centre and refurbished the 15 hard courts and 10 clay courts. For the tournament, he brought in local food vendors to create a DC lawn party, expanded the draw to introduce fresh talent and helped turn DC from a company town into a more cosmopolitan city. 

The National Museum of African American History and Culture, colloquially known as the Blacksonian.

MUST SEE IN DC

The New York — DC corridor is the place to be for ambitious professionals and thriving start-ups, and since about 2005, DC has (almost, but not quite) caught up with New York. Once the murder capital of the country with a mayor known for smoking crack cocaine, DC has come full circle with bars, fine dining, renovated museums and galleries, and somewhat of a local music scene. Better yet, all the politicians fly home and lobbyists retreat to the suburbs on the weekends.

Of course, check out the National Mall, and its never-ending expanse of monuments, but stop by at the Museum of African-American History and Culture to bear witness to the highs and lows of a former enslaved people — and pay homage to Ashe, Althea Gibson and the Williams sisters in its fantastic display on sport.

Like London, DC’s National Portrait Gallery has been recently renovated and includes the famed portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama — another non-miss. The International Spy Museum would appeal to all the would-be spooks among us, while for those into a quieter profession, the National Bonsai Museum is sure to please. It even has an American twist: one of the several dozen trees on display even survived the bombing of Hiroshima.

Tyson’s Corner, one of the premiere shopping centers in the DC area.

SHOP

It’s no surprise that the city is littered with vendors selling their plastic patriotic wares, but if they aren’t quite to your liking here’s where you can indulge in some retail therapy.

Georgetown: This historic neighbourhood is home to some of the most renowned luxury boutiques and designer stores. M Street and Wisconsin Avenue are the main shopping streets in Georgetown, featuring brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Tory Burch, among plenty more. The area has a charming atmosphere with cobblestone streets, so a sure bet for an easy afternoon of window shopping.

CityCenterDC: This modern development in downtown D.C. hosts a collection of high-end retailers, including Hermès, Dior, and Paul Stuart. The sleek architecture and sophisticated design of CityCenterDC only add to the centre’s appeal. 

Tysons Galleria: While not in the city itself but nearby in McLean, Virginia, Tysons Galleria is a luxury shopping mall with a wide range of high-end brands, including Versace, Gucci, and Prada. It’s a popular spot for upscale shopping in the D.C. metropolitan area.

Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue: Both of these renowned department stores have locations in the D.C. area, offering a one-stop-shop for a curated selection of luxury fashion, accessories, and beauty.

A traditional steak dinner in Washington, DC.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

Not so many years ago, the DC power dinner was a Ruth’s Chris Steak and a bottle of Cabernet. President Bill Clinton started the cultural shift with him and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton sneaking out of the White House for Ethiopian, Mexican or Italian at the renowned Filomena restaurant in Georgetown. While the Citi Open has become a food destination in itself — José Andrés debuted his new burger brand called Iberico Smashed at this year’s tournament — outlying DC has also become a gastronome’s Eden. To feast on Michelin-starred sushi, Chef Nobu Yamazaki’s  Sushi Taro features the “Omakase counter,” an interactive tasting course that riffs off its translation: “give me something.” Other not-to-miss restaurants in DC’s foodie scene include Lauriol Plaza for Mexican, Ben’s Chili Bowl, an Obama favourite, and farm-to-table fare at The Pembroke.

The view from the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.

SLEEP

With its constant stream of lobbyists, politicos and sightseers, Washington has plenty of places to stay, with less-expensive options on the Virginia side of the Potomac. However, old-school luxury endures at the Hay-Adams, a historic hotel with stunning views of the White House, St. John’s Church (the “Church of the Presidents’) and Lafayette Square, as well as the Willard, which earned its place in the American canon by hosting the last-ditch Peace Convention before the outbreak of the American Civil War. The Washington Hilton — the site of the assassination attempt on former President Ronald Reagan — is within walking distance of both Embassy Row and Rock Creek Park, while The Line hotel in trendy Adams Morgan is not only pet-friendly, but has free bike rental for a quick ride to the Citi Open.

WIMBLEDON VILLAGE WINDOWS COMPETITION

Family Treatment Centre: The top prize winner in 2022 and second place in 2021, Family Treatment Centre comes back as strong as Djokovic in the 2023 Wimbledon Windows competition. This year, the mental health clinic received help for its “Love All” theme from Warren Bushaway, aka the “Banksy of Flowers.” Bushaway put a player in a vintage bi-plane trailing a plume of flowers, balls, rackets, strawberries and cream cartons.

During the tournament, even the shops compete for best in show...

Two weeks before the famed Championships at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) signs of the upcoming event amidst the normally sleepy village start to emerge: American Express signs boasting all the privileges of membership appear; green-and-purple bunting pops up along the streetlamps; and out of nowhere, wooden racquets and vintage whites start to appear in storefronts everywhere.

As the first yellow Slazenger ball is served and returned on the grass, more than 70 businesses in Wimbledon are vying for a prize in the annual Wimbledon Village Tennis Windows competition . Founded in 2013 by Kimberley Salmassian, a onetime boutique owner who noticed the lack of visitors to shops during the tournament, now every year the community battles it out for various prizes while “championing their own niche business services with verbal and visual puns,” according to Salmassian. There are few rules — “businesses don’t need to have tennis racquets and balls in their windows,” Salmassian says — and most interpretations and riffs on the Wimbledon tennis theme (purple and green colours, strawberries and cream, the all-white clothing) are allowed. In the past, these have included a window painting of a John McEnroe Cartoon saying “You can’t be serious,”; an anatomical skeleton donning umpire’s regalia and juggling balls; a mannequin in barrister robe and wig behind a sign “See You in Court”; and many Thai buddhas holding balls.

Cancer Research UK: Last year, Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers loved Cancer Research UK’s “That 70s Show” tribute, which used charity contributions to dress models as icons Billie Jean King, Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert. For 2023, the charity has dug even deeper to appeal to those from the Greatest Generation by pulling out the long white skirts and woollen slacks, wooden racquets and fine China, showing off the depth of its patrons’ collections.

Salmassian chooses ten judges from all walks of life to score each participating business according to innovation, creativity, effort and humour, then submit their top 10. Past prizes have included Centre Court tickets, dinner for two at The Ivy, luxury food and champagne hampers from Fortnum & Mason and others, beauty treatments, personal training sessions and wine-tasting experiences. “The AELTC has taken more and more of an interest with every year and even the players, too — of course they all love the Thai food,” Salmassian says. “We’ve just only come back from the Covid hangover, but we’re hitting our stride again.”

Hemingway’s: A perennial favourite for its humorous painted windows, for 2023, the popular post-Wimbledon drink spot highlighted the male and female champions of the past ten years (including many caricatures of Djokovic) toasting their good fortune and drinking champagne (except for Djokovic, who is gluten-free). In 2022, Hemingway’s won second place for its cartoons of Dolly (Volley) Parton and Elton (the Racket Man) John.

Thai Tao: An Andy Murray Favorite.

Rose and Crown Pub: An original Wimbledon town pub, Wimbledon patrons must book early.

Michael Platt Jewellery: A smaller display sometimes has big impact.

Wimbledon Books: Wimbledon Bookshop has a miniature contest featuring rubber ducks dressed up as Novak Duckovic and Andre Eggessi.

Oxfam: A perennial favorite of the village usually places in the top ten.

Deborah Beaumont Interiors: A display of most of its own handmade creations.

ANGELA BUXTON: ENGLAND’S ONLY WIMBLEDON FINALIST TO NEVER SEE THE LOCKER ROOM

Tennis partners Althea Gibson, left, and Angela Buxton, hold the 1956 Wimbledon Ladies’ Doubles trophy. Buxton became one of the few English finalists that same year, losing to American Shirley Fry.

Friends to Althea Gibson, BBC commentator and prominent teacher guessed Anti-Semitism; the AELTC never said.

Angela Buxton, long retired from tennis, yet still living a very busy life at her holiday home in Florida, received a disturbing phone call out of the blue one spring day in 1996 — just 40 years short of her greatest feat on tour. In an instant, she recognised the voice at the other end: Althea Gibson, Buxton’s old friend and doubles partner and the first Black woman to play in — and win — Wimbledon. Gibson needed help, she said — she needed money.

Buxton hadn’t heard from Gibson for possibly a decade, yet she jumped to attention, according to the 2002 book The Match, calling all their old tennis pals and alerting the United States Tennis Association (USTA). In the end, Buxton raised nearly $500,000 for Gibson to live comfortably until passed in 2003.

Yet Buxton never received a membership at either the Cumberland Lawn Tennis Club — the North London club where she spent her formative years — or the All-England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), the host club of Wimbledon, neither while she was alive or posthumously. She was neither memorialised with a statue nor a scholarship, an induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF) in Rhode Island nor a special exhibit in any Jewish Museum, aside from the  National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and the Black Tennis Hall of Fame, “for her for her doubles partnership… as well as her efforts to raise funds for the ailing Gibson near the end of her life.”

The grass courts of the Cumberland Club

Other Jewish players, including American Wimbledon champion Dick Savitt, have become members, and there is some confusion surrounding Buxton’s application to the club. Still, the fact that a Jewish woman who did more than practically anyone else to support the integration of tennis and the recognition of Black tennis players, especially women, remains a serious oversight, according to many historians. “Not inviting Angela Buxton to become a member of the All England Club in 1956 was a startling omission by the Club,” said David Berry, the author of A People’s History of Tennis. “It was true that only singles champions are automatically given honorary membership of the Club. But that year Angela had won the doubles… and lost in the singles final to Althea. This was the best achievement by a British woman for many decades and surely merited being offered membership.”

Angela Buxton, born in Liverpool in 1934 to Violet (Greenberg) Buxton and Harry Buxton, a nascent entertainment mogul, spent her formative years (1940-1945) in Cape Town and then, Johannesburg, South Africa, where she was often reprimanded for playing with the children of Black servants — colour barriers had never crossed her mind, she once said. When the war ended in 1945 and the Buxtons returned to England, they settled in Hampstead, where Buxton trained under Bill Blake at the Cumberland Club, the best club in North London. Angela felt she was a shoo-in for membership. “(Bill) welcomed this young player who seemed to have some promise, and after a few lessons, gave her an application to join the club,” according to author Bruce Schoenfeld. “She filled it out: name, address, parents’ name, religion, all the details. Weeks passed and nobody mentioned her status…

Angela Buxton likely wearing one of her Lillywhite’s dresses in 1955, when she was ranked among the top 10 female players in the world.

“Each time she stepped inside the club… she inquired about the application… Finally, Bill Blake couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘Look, Angela, please don’t keep asking me, you’re not going to be able to join the club,’ Blake told her.” When she asked why not, he replied, “‘No, you’re perfectly good, but you’re Jewish.’” That was the first time Buxton felt prejudice in her home country.

Friends and colleagues of Buxton said she could be “difficult,” sometimes “code” for anti-Semitism, according to Berry. But many alluded to her being headstrong. “Angela Buxton divided people,” Berry wrote. “She… did not go out of her way to make friends or be charming to tennis authorities.

“Norman Dale, a county player at the time and Jewish himself, remembered her as ‘simply not popular. She was very, very serious and dedicated to her tennis. People did not like that in those days.’”

Some people didn’t like it. But in their dedication, Gibson and Buxton were soul sisters. As soon as Buxton saw Gibson during Gibson’s 1951 British debut at The Queen’s Club, she knew she had seen the future. “The British weren’t particularly taken with Althea, either,” Schoenfeld wrote, “she seemed arrogant in her conversations with other players, tight-lipped and… quick to take offense.”

The truth is, in the early 1950s, Gibson had hit a slump. Although she had started promisingly and swept the American Tennis Association (ATA) Championships (the Black players’ USTA), followed by her first Forest Hills appearance in 1951, Gibson almost gave up tennis to join the Women’s Auxiliary Army. But a U.S. goodwill tour of Southeast Asia and an acquaintance with Buxton changed the course of history. Buxton, who was there for the Wightman Cup, an annual US vs. UK women’s team tennis competition, began practicing with Gibson and before the trip was through “Angela had convinced Althea to travel to Europe.”

The scheduling board at the Cumberland Lawn Tennis Club.

“Each time she stepped inside the club… she inquired about the application… Finally, Bill Blake couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘Look, Angela, please don’t keep asking me, you’re not going to be able to join the club,’ Blake told her.” When she asked why not, he replied, “‘No, you’re perfectly good, but you’re Jewish.’” That was the first time Buxton felt prejudice in her home country.

Friends and colleagues of Buxton said she could be “difficult,” sometimes “code” for anti-Semitism, according to Berry. But many alluded to her being headstrong. “Angela Buxton divided people,” Berry wrote. “She… did not go out of her way to make friends or be charming to tennis authorities.

“Norman Dale, a county player at the time and Jewish himself, remembered her as ‘simply not popular. She was very, very serious and dedicated to her tennis. People did not like that in those days.’”

Some people didn’t like it. But in their dedication, Gibson and Buxton were soul sisters. As soon as Buxton saw Gibson during Gibson’s 1951 British debut at The Queen’s Club, she knew she had seen the future. “The British weren’t particularly taken with Althea, either,” Schoenfeld wrote, “she seemed arrogant in her conversations with other players, tight-lipped and… quick to take offense.”

The truth is, in the early 1950s, Gibson had hit a slump. Although she had started promisingly and swept the American Tennis Association (ATA) Championships (the Black players’ USTA), followed by her first Forest Hills appearance in 1951, Gibson almost gave up tennis to join the Women’s Auxiliary Army. But a U.S. goodwill tour of Southeast Asia and an acquaintance with Buxton changed the course of history. Buxton, who was there for the Wightman Cup, an annual US vs. UK women’s team tennis competition, began practicing with Gibson and before the trip was through “Angela had convinced Althea to travel to Europe.”

Angela Buxton reading remarks at the unveiling of the statue of Althea Gibson at Flushing Meadows during the 2019 U.S. Open.

From then, until Buxton’s retirement in 1956 due to tenosynovitis, an incurable wrist inflammation, and Gibson’s in 1958, the two were not only doubles champions and practice partners, but moral supports, cinema buddies, golfing mates and in the case of Buxton, occasional patron. Whenever Gibson came to play in England, she stayed at Rossmore Court (Buxton’s apartment near Regents Park), and Buxton, a designer for Lillywhite’s sporting goods store, helped dress Gibson for her subsequent grass court appearances at Queen’s, in Bournemouth and during her 1958 Wimbledon championship.

In their later lives, Buxton went on to marry Donald Silk, a Zionist lawyer who put the nascent Israeli state above all else, including their three children, Benjamin, Joseph and Rebecca. After leaving him in the 1960s, Buxton formed the Angela Buxton Tennis Academy in North London with her former coach, Clarence Medleycott “Jimmy” Jones, a newspaperman, tennis magazine founder and until the end of his life, companion. After Jones and her son, Joseph died of HIV, she permanently moved to Florida, continued her coaching, while also sponsoring young players competing at America’s Orange Bowl.

Gibson, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to give up sports, or the limelight. After a brief singing career — as well as an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show — Gibson joined the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) and integrated golf. Despite a sponsorship with the Harry C. Lee sporting goods company, a tour with the Harlem Globetrotters with former amateur Karol Fageros  (Gibson v. Fageros were the opening act) and positions teaching tennis, however, Gibson was never able to consistently “rub two nickels together,” Buxton said. There were several reasons for this, according to Schoenfeld. Gibson and Buxton came of age as players before the Open era, when amateurs still competed for nothing and women for even less. Gibson also had nothing to fall back on, unlike Buxton who came from wealth. Lastly, Gibson dated several men, and later married a former coach who spent her funds lavishly, seemingly as “ a means to reward (Sidney) Llewellyn for his years of assistance.”

Yet for Gibson, the honours were manifest. In addition to the honorary membership to the AELTC, the ITHF, the (U.S.) National Women’s Hall of Fame, the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honour from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, induction into the US Open Court of Champions, a foundation in her honour,  the Althea Gibson Foundation, which supports gifted golf and tennis players, the display of her five Wimbledon trophies at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, a bronze statue, created by sculptor Thomas Jay Warren, in Branch Brook Park (Newark, New Jersey), a United States Postal Service stamp and lastly, a statue honouring Gibson at the U.S. Open — only the second Flushing Meadows monument erected for a champion. Buxton attended the unveiling in 2019 at age 85. “We won both the French and Wimbledon doubles together with my arm around her both times at the closing ceremonies,” Buxton said during the ceremony. “She slowly became the Jackie Robinson of tennis…”

In the scattered months following her 1956 Wimbledon accomplishments, Angela had been advised to “strike while the iron is hot,” for Wimbledon membership because “you may never get the chance again,” Buxton told Schoenfeld. While singles winners automatically become members  — and still do to this day — winners of the Gentlemen’s  Ladies’ and Mixed Doubles must submit applications. Angela did as told, but never received a response. She thought about it occasionally through the years, according to The Match, but she wasn’t planning on taking a journey to SW19 just to play tennis. But her lack of membership started to resonate among her pupils and peers. In 2019, a reporter from the Times came to inquire about it, and she willingly told him, “I suppose it’s because I’m Jewish,” which made headlines. Wimbledon had a few Jewish members by then, but none as forthright or as prominent as Buxton. In time, the AELTC informed Buxton that she must have declined and that she would have to return to the waiting list. “That’s all right, I’ve only been waiting thirty years,” Buxton said. Buxton died in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in August 2020.

Buxton hits a forehand volley at a club in England during the height of her career in the 1950s.

“A couple of years ago, a ‘friend’ of the All England Club invited me to an off the record briefing about the ‘real reason’ Angela was never offered membership hinting at some aspects of her character that were not in keeping with the club,” Berry said. “Certainly, she could be a difficult woman at times — but then so could many other top champions.  I declined the briefing on the basis that it is too easy to make character aspersions without anyone taking responsibility for them.

“Now of course we will never know unless the All England Club finally decides to talk about the matter openly, about as likely as a British woman in this year’s Wimbledon championships coming anywhere near emulating Angela’s amazing achievement in 1956.”

Perhaps it bothered Buxton to the very end, perhaps not. In her later years, she was almost totally focused on the new generation of players. When in 1996, Buxton received an invitation from Richard Williams to meet his young daughter, Venus, Buxton asked for a phone and punched in Gibson’s numbers and the two Black trailblazers chatted. Eight months later, on the Eve of Venus’ run to the U.S. Open final, Gibson gave to Venus the same advice she had lived by and passed on to her lifelong doubles partner. “Be who you are and let your racquet do the talking,” she said. “The crowd will love you.”

POSTCARD FROM WIMBLEDON

With Wimbledon now officially underway, the next two weeks present not only elite grass court tennis, but abundant chances for wining, dining, and a-list celebrity spotting.

As the grass season draws to a close, the All Court Tennis Club is here to guide you along, far beyond the customary pleasures of strawberries and cream and spectating world-class tennis. That’s the easy part, hey?

The grass is never better in England than in June, and Wimbledon probably has the best grass in the aisle. Sown with 100 per cent Perennial Ryegrass since 2001, the 15 permanent ground staff picked this instead of a mixed blend (70 per cent rye/30 per cent creeping red fescue) to improve durability and strengthen “the sward” to withstand the increasing tear of the modern game. In addition to the most exquisite grass —cut to a height of 8mm with rulers coming out to measure — Wimbledon ensures everything about the tournament meets the finest standards, from the players, who endure rounds of warm-ups, to the officials, who are plucked from the rosters of the best performing, to the strawberries sourced from the lush Kent countryside at Hugh Lowe farms – a family owned business with a 100-year heritage. It’s a club most amateurs and pros will only ever dream of playing at, it’s the venue for the closing out of the grass season and the one that sees players off to the rowdy and rumbunctious, U.S. Open.

PLAY

A handful of lucky All Courters have membership at All England Lawn Tennis Club. If you’re fortunate enough to get invited to play on the hallowed grass courts as a member guest, we can confirm it is as good as it sounds. The AELTC also makes itself available for corporate events and tours.

Founded on 23 July 1868 as the All England Croquet Club, the great success and rapid evolution of tennis — as well as the peak of croquet — forced the club to convert some of its croquet lawns to tennis lawns. In 1875, the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club (AECLTC), became the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTCC) and club members decided to hold a club tournament. When that club tournament became a Grand Slam, they finally settled on the AELTC.

The club now has 18 championship grass courts (including Centre Court and Court One) and 14 grass practice courts located next door, in Aorangi Park. The club has 375 full members, about 100 temporary playing members and a number of honorary members. To become a full or temporary member, an applicant must obtain letters of support from four existing full members, two of whom must have known the applicant for at least three years. The name is then added to the candidates’ list. Honorary members are elected from time to time by the club’s committee. Membership carries with it the right to purchase two tickets for each day of the Wimbledon Championships. But most importantly, members gain the right to play year-round on the grass and enjoy the perks of the clubhouse: a large restaurant which serves members throughout the day, plush socialising areas, beautiful locker rooms, access to the terrace and player entrances and also, the balcony. “It’s just the attention to detail in every single aspect that this place has,” Emma Raducanu told ESPN in 2022. “I mean, from the flowers to everything. They have, like, subtle hints of tennis racquets and tennis balls in the carpets. The level they go to make sure this place is pretty much perfect, it’s pretty outstanding.”

SHOP

Wimbledon fans usually like to splurge on the latest offerings of the Ralph Lauren collection — or even the new Wimbledon casual collection — but the village itself has a lot to offer if you are looking for some retail therapy. Wimbledon Village offers a diverse array of upscale boutiques, including Sweaty Betty for stylish activewear, La Creuset and Japanese Knife Company for premium cookware, Matches Fashion for luxury fashion finds, and Space NK for high-end beauty products.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

Wimbledon is known for having a string of delicious Thai food eateries across the village, which all of the players love, but there are plenty of other options in the village. Still, if you want to eat like Andy Murray…

Thai Tho: Located on Wimbledon High Street, Thai Tho has been serving players and tennis commentators, including Andre Agassi and Chris Evert, since the late 1980s — it is one of Maria Sharapova’s favourite places to dine. A far cry from High Street chain-restaurants, Thai Tho has the usual curries, stir fries and noodles, but serves it all in an interior willed with intricately carved Buddha statues, jade-coloured plates and colourful flowers.

Hemingways: Since 2010, Hemingways has been the only locally owned and independent cocktail establishment in the heart of Wimbledon village. True to its namesake, Hemingways  can put together such favourites as an Old Fashioned, an Espresso Martini, or an in-house creation like the ever-popular Pomme d’Hemingways. Hemingways complements its drink menu with a selection of homemade pizzas and antipasti.

Ivy Café Wimbledon: Although an England chain, The Ivy Café offers sophisticated all-day dining in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere — from modern British cuisine to café-style classics and vegan/vegetarian dishes. The restaurant is within easy reach of the AELTC and the New Wimbledon theatre, making it the ideal venue for post-match and/or pre-theatre dining or drinks anytime. An intimate garden terrace and private first-floor dining room make it ideal for groups and entourages.

The Dog & Fox: Live it up like Nick Kyrgios on a bad streak at this iconic pub and hotel at the hub of Wimbledon Village. Of course, a traditional pub serves pub classics, such as fish & chips or a Sunday roast, but with summer here, Dog & Fox chefs are cooking fresh vegetables, like tenderstem broccoli and pea tart, as well as lamb and spiced cous cous salad. With or without a Wimbledon ticket, enjoy a sparkling gin spritz on the Sipsmith Sipping Terrace, a Camden’s finest or a Pimm’s and watch the results roll in.

SLEEP

It’s well known that most of the locals clear out of the village when the Championships roll into town, as there are lucrative deals to be made renting out houses to the players. In 2021, the AELTC, under quarantine guidelines, made everyone from the tournament — officials, players, coaches and court attendants — quarantine at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, a luxury hotel in Southwark, about a 45-minute drive from Wimbledon. But with coronavirus faded away, it’s accommodation as usual.

Hotel du Vin (Cannizaro House): A country house seven miles from London, the current Cannizaro House was the long-time home of Sophia Johnstone, heiress to an East India Company fortune and her husband, the Italian aristocrat, Francesco Platamone,  Duke of Cannizzaro. Now a part of the Clermont Hotel Group, the Cannizaro House’s individually decorated rooms and terrace restaurant offer a respite from the literal and metaphorical heat at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. From £374 (during Wimbledon).

Warren House: Just a short 11-minute drive from the AELTC, Warren House is a breath-taking Victorian Grade II listed building, offering stunning accommodation within 6 acres of beautiful, landscaped gardens. Situated in the exclusive Coombe Estate, the hotel has 48 bedrooms, two bars and a restaurant with terrace dining.

The Rose & Crown: This 17th century pub has been housing weary travellers in Wimbledon since 2002 with 13 comfortable, dog-friendly rooms with Wimbledon Common on the doorstep, a bustling high street packed with independent shops and restaurants, and the AELTC a short walk away. Moreover, the Rose & Crown will transform its sun-trap terraced garden into a round-the-clock tennis club party with matches and recaps on outside or inside TV screens and live music from The Modern Apes. Call for rates.

POSTCARD FROM QUEENS CLUB

One of the most popular and longest-running ATP Tour events, the cinch Championships at the Queen’s Club in West Kensington is back for another year; showcasing the very best singles and doubles players of the men's game.

Following the conclusion of the French Open, the clay season undergoes a notable hiatus for the month of June, with the break allowing players to transition from clay courts to the vibrant green grass at two of London’s most prestigious clubs. The esteemed Queen’s Club, which bears the name of its first patron Queen Victoria, serves up its West Kensington located hallowed courts for the game’s top players to refine their skills in preparation for Wimbledon, the third Grand Slam of the year.

An oasis of calm near the centre of London, invitation to play on one of the 28 outdoor lawn tennis courts at The Queen’s Club is a rare treat and probably second only to one: the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC). Playing is thrilling but do you also like to watch?  The All Court Tennis Club will be there to watch this thrilling ATP 500 tournament under what we’re sure will be, the glorious London sun! We will be in attendance on several days of the tournament, which runs from Monday 19th to Sunday 25th June. If you’re heading the West London borough to watch the tennis or you’re looking to play, make sure to drop shot us your email. We always love meeting members.

PLAY

For nearly 135 years, spectators have been flocking to The Queen’s Club in West Kensington to see some of the best in men’s tennis. While initially held at Stamford Bridge — home of the Chelsea football club — and originally both a men’s and women’s singles event, the ‘London Grass Court Championships’ ran continuously as both a WTA and ATP event until 1973. In 2015, it was upgraded from an ATP World 250 to an ATP Tour 500.

There is no doubting that players love Queen’s. Since 1979, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras, Lleyton Hewitt, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray (twice) have bagged the trophy and Wimbledon in the same year. Some impressive achievements!

During the 2004 singles tournament, fan favourite Andy Roddick set the world record for the fastest serve at 153 mph (246.2 km/h) during a straight-set victory over Thailand’s Paradon Srichaphan in the quarterfinals.  

In a surprise turn of events, Italy’s Matteo Berrettini (ATP No. 20) won the cinch Championships in 2021 and successfully defended his title with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Filip Krajinovic in 2022. That line-up included no fewer than nine British standouts, including Andy Murray, Cameron Norrie, Dan Evans, Jack Draper and Joe Salisbury — the home crowd was more than (politely) thrilled. So far for 2023, cinch has signed up British favourites Norrie (ATP No. 13), Evans (ATP No. 25) and Sir Andy (ATP No. 41). Also on the rota are American upstart Ben Shelton (ATP No. 36), the son of veteran player Brian Shelton and returning Canadian pro Milos Raonic.

MUST DO IN LONDON

Portobello Road, Notting Hill

We recommend spending a Saturday morning on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, taking in the charming neighbourhood atmosphere and browsing the market stalls selling all sorts. Your first stop? If you’re looking for a knock-your-socks-off strong Colombian brew and a warm welcome from a friendly team of staff, make it Hermanos. A coffee for take-away is our recommendation here as there is plenty to see among the vintage treasures, exotic spices, eclectic textiles, and tantalising street food. You won’t need much direction thereafter; you’ll be guided by the sure-bet bustle on the famed street. What better way to spend a few hours? Especially if the warm weather remains. And, while we enjoy tasting the casual cuisine that the market stalls offer in abundance, we will often opt for a table at Gold if meeting with a group of friends. You’ll be well served for tasty food, attentive service and super strong cocktails!

Hyde Park

Take a lime bike on the hop and set off through Hyde Park for an afternoon outdoors and a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of the surrounding city. We recommend planning your route with one final destination in mind: The Cow, one of the city’s best pubs in our eyes. A few others in the area draw a close second though: The Churchill Arms, The Windsor Castle, The Ladbroke Arms or The Hillgate.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

The River Café: Located on the north bank of the Thames in Hammersmith, The River Café specialise in Italian cuisine with signature dishes being the wild mushroom risotto, Dover sole and John Dory smoked in the restaurant’s own wood stove. They also have an impressive array of rich Italian desserts, including lemon almond cake and the chocolate “Nemesis” cake. The River Café is still run by one of the original owners, and is said to be a personal favourite of Elton John’s.

The Chancellor & Crisp W6: For a more casual and cost-effective Italian option, check out this pub and pizza love-affair in the Fulham/Hammersmith area. A brief scroll of their Instagram account and you’ll quickly understand why this spot has absolutely blown up over the past two months. They run an interesting booking system whereby you give them a text ahead of time 07515930582 and they’ll keep a dough for you! Rock up, grab a pint and let them know you’ve arrived. Your pizza will follow shortly thereafter. We assure you (following*extensive* testing) that the burrata and honey pie is the one to go for here.

Dishoom: If you haven’t heard of Dishoom yet, chances are you will soon. Dishoom have a few locations across London, but if you’re hanging out West for the tennis, pop by their Kensington High St. spot. The restaurant pays homage to the Irani cafés of Bombay, the first places in the former Commonwealth city where people of any culture, class or religion could take cool refuge from the street with a cup of chai, a simple snack or a hearty meal. With parents hailing from Punjab and Rajasthan, Chef Rishi Anand has created black dhal, fiery-crusted lamb chops, yoghurt raita for dipping and ‘Ruby Murray’ with floppy roti bread, drink fruity lassi, exotic ‘coolers’, a bottle of London Fields IPA or something from the modest wine list while taking in the décor of an Indian train station. They run a smooth and efficient table allocation system. No booking necessary. Just show up, and they’ll pop you on the list for a call back, usually around 15-30 minutes later.

SLEEP

St. James Hotel & Club: Tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac in the prestigious Mayfair, London, close to Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, this 5-star boutique hotel is the ideal location for both business and leisure. With fabulous penthouse suites and some of the best guest room terraces in London, this hotel boasts stylish, and sleek interiors. Enjoy the award winning, Michelin starred restaurant, Seven Park Place, as well as their new 1857 The Bar – home to the widest selection of vintage port wine in London.

All Court Tennis Club members can benefit from a generous 15% discount on all rooms and suites between January-April and September-December and a 10% discount from May-August, as well as a complimentary continental breakfast.

Lime Tree Hotel: From the roots up, Lime Tree feels like a rustic inn for cosy conviviality rather than a swanky urban retreat. The 28 rooms sit within two grade II listed townhouses and among exuberantly carpeted corridors adorned with stacked books wrapped in twine. Some of the larger bedrooms have high, corniced ceilings, French doors and little street-side balconies. When not at the tennis, take in the garden, the restaurant, or even Buckingham Palace, less than a mile away. 

NoMad London: In the heart of Covent Garden, NoMad has taken over the historic, grade II former Bow Street Magistrates’ Court and Police Station. A collaboration with New York-based interior design studio Roman and Williams, the transformation of the storied 19th century building draws inspiration from its history, as well as the artistic and cultural connection between London and New York. Rooms feature hardwood floors, modern décor, Argan bath amenities by Côté Bastide, as well as a nightly turndown service and complimentary newspaper delivery to check the scores from SW19.

POSTCARD FROM PARIS

Don’t miss: Paris, the city of clay and floodlights

As Roland Garros fast approaches, the tennis world prepares for the notable absence of Rafael Nadal who will be missing from the tournament for the first time in 18 years. However, the stage looks set for an electrifying clash between the formidable Novak Djokovic (3) and the rapidly emerging, Carlos Alcaraz (1); igniting a palpable excitement among tennis enthusiasts, leaving them with every reason to savour the upcoming tournament. Throw into the mix Russia’s Daniil Medvedev (2) and Andrey Rublev (7) Scandinavia’s Casper Ruud (4) and Holger Rune (6) North American Taylor Fritz and Felix Auger-Aliassime (10) and the proud Greek, Mr. Stefanos Tsitsipas (5) and you’ve concocted a top-10 tennis delight, despite missing the King of Clay.

It’s time to pack your Louis Vuitton keep-all and head to Paris.  Whether you’re negotiating the Arc de Triomphe in a hire car, easing into the vibrant and buzzing Gare du Nord (ah, the calm of rail travel) or touching down at Charles de Gaulle Airport  (mind the ‘peripherique‘ congestion on the way in), you’ll be glad you took the trip to the beguiling city of lights. Dump your luggage with the porter and grab the latest issue of Le Monde, relaxing in one of the city’s charming cafes, hot coffee in hand. Not for long though, it’s time to hop on a Dott electric bike with the city’s 16th Arrondissement in your sights and the iconic tournament stadium beckoning you forward.  It’s Roland Garros time!

Insider travel tip: Paris traffic can be prodigious, and our London HQ team has always been impressed with the efficiency of the motorbike taxis in Paris.  We often use this company: Motocab. Check out our Instagram reel for a real-life example.

PLAY

The All Court Tennis Club partners with the prestigious and historic Tennis Club de Paris where our Paris Ambassador and former France No.36, Antoine Benneteau regularly frequents with our members.

To enter the Tennis Club de Paris, is to enter “one of the cradles of French tennis.” Founded in 1895, the TCP is one of a few clubs remaining that has always welcomed and brought together champions and fans of the yellow ball in France. After a makeover in recent years, the TCP now has 18 courts (a mix of indoor and outdoor clay and hardcourt, two newly minted Padel courts, as well as a clubhouse, bar, proshop “with fast rope service,” a mini-tennis court, and, of course, a training wall.

WATCH

Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam tennis complex not named for a tennis player. Built in a mad rush in 1928 at the urging of the four mousquetaires, they needed a stadium that would befit a Davis Cup match and with the Stade Francais (rugby stadium) readily available for renovation, they acceded to the wishes of Emile Lesueur, Stade Francais president of the at the time, who was a friend and former classmate of the well-regarded World War I aviator and deceased hero, Roland Garros. Italian sculptor Vito Tongiani made bronze statues of the musketeers in the 1980s and the early 1990s, which were situated around the ground for 30 years until the 2020 renovations. Now, fans can see them in the Musketeers Garden, then enjoy a lie-down in one of the large orange deck chairs while watching the action on a big-screen television which this year will include a mass return of some of the top women’s players as Elina Svitolina (27) enters the draws following the birth of her first child, and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (21), the 2021 runner-up, as well as Jennifer Brady, who will return from injury.

SHOP

Shakespeare and Company: When not raiding the rather large La Boutique Officielle Roland Garros for towels, trinkets and the latest in Lacoste, there are quite a few shops in Paris that will gladly take your hard-earned euros. This famous bookstore, which also doubles as the “Tumbleweed Hotel” for traveling writers, was opened in 1951 by an American George Whitman who had great hopes of creating a literary hub in the heart of the City of Lights. Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia has now taken over the day-to-day management of the store, and the Tumbleweed tradition still lives on with as many as 40,000 people having slept in the shop over the years. Regular activities that occur in the bookshop are afternoon tea, poetry readings, writers’ meetings — and, as always, the selling of new and used books.

Officine Universelle Buly: When he isn’t making candles or redesigning something spectacular, Moroccan-French wunderkind Ramdane Touhami, a former co-owner of Cire Trudon — the French luxury candle manufacturer  — is busy at his three-year-old luxury cosmetics company. The 2,000-square-foot space in the Marais district includes a 19th-century-style boutique selling the Buly brand’s early 19th century aromatic potions, powders, soaps and perfumes. The range of exquisitely packaged, paraben-free products also include oils, creams, and the world’s largest collection of combs, as well as sponges, moisturisers and crystals sourced from Morocco.

For the historic shopping district, head over to the Haussmann-Opera-Saint-Lazare quarter. The obvious place to start is Galeries Lafayette, arguably Paris’ premier shopping centre (and a space to seek shelter if it’s raining or if you don’t feel like queuing for a museum or gallery.)

For something more eclectic, try the unique atmosphere in the Martyrs district in Pigalle at the foot of Montmartre Hill. The shops reflect the quirkiness of the residents, with little designer shops, vintage boutiques and other hidden gems where you can acquire something that the more traditional tourist won’t.  If you want the total Pigalle experience, stay at the hip Le Pigalle hotel, just around the bend from Moulin Rouge.  

At the other end of the spectrum, you can do your best Pretty Woman shopping spree impression in the ‘golden triangle’ of shopping district of Paris. Located between Avenue des Champs-Elysées, Avenue Montaigne and Avenue George V, is one of the most stylish areas in Paris, where grand fashion houses have their worldwide flagship stores, such as Louis Vuitton, Chloe, Dior, Hermes and Yves Saint Laurent.

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

Les Papilles: A market by day, a restaurant by night, this deli/bistro offers a rotating menu of fish, lamb, beef and farm-fresh vegetables, complemented by the finest wines. For parties of 15 or more, it also has a large communal table with a large-screen TV for those special sporting events, such as the World Cup, the Euros — or Roland Garros. But make reservations. Every day at noon and sundown, Les Papilles offers a “return from the market” menu, allowing patrons to sample all of the region’s best of everything, which is highly popular with both locals and tourists alike.

Bistrot Paul Bert: Despite old-school decor (chalkboard menu, mosaic tiles, white aproned waiters,) this classic French bistro opened at the turn of the 21st century. The maître d’ greets patrons immediately with a “bonjour” and then a check of their giant reservation book. Locals say if you don’t have a reservation, you should still stop by because sometimes, tourists get lucky — or get a bar seat for small plates and superb wine from La Cave Paul Bert down the street. The menu features traditional French — from seasonal plump white asparagus and the Côte de Boeuf for two (served medium-rare with the most perfect French fries) to tartare to signature yellow-as-the-sun egg served with shaved black truffles followed by a steaming-hot soufflé.

SLEEP

The All Court Tennis Club partners with a suite of spectacular hotels around the world, providing their members with unique benefits such as preferential rates and perks. If you’d like to become a complimentary member of the All Court Tennis Club (and we’d certainly like that!) visit our membership page here.

Edgar & Achille: Reclaiming a dilapidated workshop overlooking a little square with a garden, Guillaume Rouget-Luchaire summoned his family and friends to transform it into the boutique hotel, Edgar and Achille. Photographers, graphic designers, decorators, stylists and scenographers soon descended to re-create each room into their own personalised, quirky vision. Perfect for a solo vacationer or a couple on a romantic sojourn.

Maison Albar Hotels Le Pont-Neuf: After a long day of tennis, head back to Rue di Rivoli, at the centre of nearly everything in Paris, where guests can linger over the view of Parisian rooftops, catch some sun in the hotel’s elegant courtyard or have a massage in the well-equipped Cinq Mondes spa. The rooms are modern and comfortable with antique mirrors, overstuffed chairs, large bathtubs and Art Deco finishes.

Hotel de l’Abbaye: Since its opening in the 70’s, Hotel de l’Abbaye has been the best-kept secret in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The 44 rooms and suites of this classic Parisian house overlook a hidden garden, housing a bar and restaurant where light meals can be enjoyed all day long.

THE ORIGINAL 9: PIONEERS OF EQUALITY IN TENNIS REWRITE HISTORY

Tingling: Four of the Original 9 goofing around with player-turned-fashion-designer Ted Tingling. Tingling, who gained recognition for designing King’s dresses would offer his services designing clothes for the tour.

The courageous stand that forever transformed women's sports.

At first glance, they seemed like an unlikely pair: a working-class Californian girl next door still in her tennis prime, and the more analytical, more intellectual New York Jewish Stanford grad. But both Billie Jean King and Gladys Heldman, publisher of World Tennis magazine, agreed on one thing: in the sport’s Open era — launched just two years prior — men and women needed to earn equal money. And both had a common frenemy: Jack Kramer, first director of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and outspoken believer that men deserved more.

Six of The Original 9 show off their International Tennis Hall of Fame rings during a ceremony at the 2022 US Open. From left to right, Julie Heldman, Peaches Bartkowicz, Rosie Casals, Kerry Melville Reid, Valerie Ziegenfuss and Billie Jean King.

Kramer fired the first shot. In August 1970, the pro-turned-promoter announced that the Los Angeles-based tournament he ran, the Pacific Southwest Open, would pay men eight times more than women. Heldman counter-punched by convincing King and her eight cohorts — the Original 9 — to boycott Pacific Southwest for a tournament in her new hometown of Houston, Texas, sponsored by Virginia Slims, a “women’s” cigarette brand launched by Philip Morris in 1968.

King not only agreed, but convinced eight of her top comrades — Rosie Casals, Nancy Richey, Kristy Pigeon, Valerie Ziegenfuss, Peaches Bartkowicz, Julie Heldman (Gladys’s daughter), as well as Australians Kerry Melville Reid and Judy Tegart Dalton — to defect. At a press conference, the “Original 9” formally signed a pro contract with Heldman’s nascent tour for $1, holding it up for the world to see.

“You’ve heard of women’s lib. This is women’s lob,” a pithy Heldman told the New York Times on the day of the signing. “I hope you will agree that the women are not fighting the USLTA.,” said Mrs. Heldman. “They are just protecting themselves.”

A Virginia Slims ad from the mid-1980s. The WTA eventually dropped their original sponsor after smoking created health concerns.

Fifty-one years later, six of the Original 9 received a long-overdue thank you during women’s semi-final night at the 2022 US Open. During a special ceremony on Arthur Ashe Stadium Court, they were presented with official International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF) rings and sincere praise from former ITHF CEOs Stan Smith — a co-founder of the ATP — and Todd Martin. The Original 9 then hung around to receive praise from Leylah Fernandez as she left the court after her semi-final victory, as well as Emma Raducanu and Maria Sakkari, before their match. Currently, an exhibit, Transcending Tennis: 50 Years of the WTA, is on display at the ITHF and partially online.

Rosie Casals playing in a San Francisco tournament during the first year of the Virginia Slims tour. Casals, who won the first women’s tournament in Houston said of the cigarette company: ““I think we were happy that at least someone payed attention to us and believed in us. If it wasn’t for Virginia Slims, women’s tennis wouldn’t be where it is now.”

In hindsight, King didn’t have to start a fuss. After all, when the Open Era began in 1968 — thus eliminating the distinction between amateur and professional matches on tour— she had signed a $40,000 contract to play in the National Tennis League — the first iteration of the ATP/WTA. The other women, however, received $20-25,000 per year, compared to the men’s share of $70,000. It seemed as if the years-long fight to earn prize money had finally ended, but a new battle would pit women players against men in the numbers. For years, Kramer had argued that men’s tennis not only required more stamina — best of five sets compared to best of three — it drew more fans, therefore necessitating a bigger purse for the men.

“I have been tagged an ogre by the girls,” Kramer complained in his 1979 book, The Game: My 40 Years in Tennis. “I’m not a crusader against women’s tennis. I’m just a businessman.

“The only prejudice practised in tennis against women players is by the fans, who have shown repeatedly that they are prejudiced against having to watch women play tennis when they might be able to watch men play.”

Gladys Heldman reading a copy of the magazine she founded, World Tennis. Heldman, a player, was also a mother to pro player, Julie Heldman, a beneficiary of the efforts of the Original 9.

And like a player struggling to stay in a match, Kramer did not give way. He endorsed the USLTA’s (now USTA) threat to suspend the players if they participated in the Heldman-backed professional tournament. He then made it clear that if they played in his, he would remit an under-the-table $7,500 appearance fee. The women did not budge.

“We’re not telling the USLTA to get lost…” King told the Times. “When the USLTA refused to sanction prize money for the Houston tournament and insisted that we play in Los Angeles, where the prize‐money ratio between men and women was 12 to 1, or not play at all, the women stuck together and signed contracts.”

The dust-up played perfectly into the hands of Philip Morris CEO Joe Cullman, who ultimately gave the nascent women’s tour $250,000, along with use of the Virginia Slims name and its slogan “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.” By the end of 1970, the Virginia Slims Circuit had boosted its numbers from nine to 40 members. “It is really mind-boggling,” King told the WTA newsletter in 2021.

Credited with starting the movement for a women’s tour, Billie Jean King wears an appropriate crown in the early 1970s.

“We had no infrastructure, and yet we got all sorts of people — promoters, venues — to take a risk. The reason is because of the title sponsor, because there was some money up there, and that was down to Gladys and her contacts.” In 1973, as King consolidated the all the various tours into the WTA and absorbed the ITF’s Women’s Grand Prix, then took it to 19 US cities — from Las Vegas to Chattanooga, Tennessee — Ban deodorant stepped in to rectify the situation that King once said “stinks” by donating $55,000 in prize money to make the women’s purse at the 1973 US Open equal to the men’s. Virginia Slims, Avon, Colgate, and Toyota then took turns sponsoring WTA tour series from 1971 to 1988.

Now 50 years later, the impact of the Original 9’s revolt in 1970 has impacted women’s sports across the board. Women’s tennis players are some of the highest-paid and most renowned athletes in the world. Following their lead, the U.S. Women’s National Hockey Team threatened to boycott the 2017 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships, until USA Hockey granted them equal rights. The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) has cited the Original 9’s premise in court during its dispute with the United States Soccer Federation over gender-bias and pay equality. More and more women are coaches on the sidelines of men’s sports — including 11 female assistant coaches in the NBA — and more women holding executive positions in sports franchises.

The Original 9 sign their contracts with the Virginia Slims Tour in 1970 for $1. Top row, left to right: Valerie Ziegenfuss, Billie Jean King, Nancy Richey, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon. Bottom row, left to right: Kerry Melville, Judy Dalton, Rosie Casals, and Gladys Heldman.

What would Gladys Heldman say about all this? Before she died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound because of health difficulties, she told the New York Times that “The reason it worked was because the women gave so much of themselves,” said Heldman, who played daily on her own indoor court through her 70s. “They knew they were the game and they inspired others. Billie Jean was incredible, always available for a clinic, a pro-am, an interview. She had the most to give, and she gave it. But everyone gave. The women who lost in early rounds would fly to the next city to beat the publicity drums for the upcoming tournament.”

ENGLAND’S TENNIS FUTURE SHINES BRIGHT: ALISHA NDUKWU’S REMARKABLE JOURNEY TO DATE

William Ndukwu came to England to conquer tennis, his daughter Alisha now carries the torch.

Standing in the shadow of the Grenfell Tower flats during a cool, yet sunny day on the turf of Notting Hill’s Avondale Park, William Ndukwu, clad today in a bright red Adidas football top, champion shorts, white cap and matching trainers, rallies with two, tall, skinny, 13-year-old girls with bright eyes and clean strokes. He is sweating, while they are barely breaking one. It’s nearly two o’clock, time for the day’s business to arrive: about 20 Year One and Year Two students from a neighbouring school ready for their tennis lesson.

Ndukwu gives his daughter, Alisha, and her doubles partner, Julia, some money for lunch, while he gathers up the balls, passes out the racquets and dictates the day’s formation to his friends and co-coaches as they begin drills. “Ready position,” he says as they all line up and grasp their racquets by both hands. “Today we are working on taking the ball on the rise!

“I want you all to step in and instead of moving back, lean forward with your racquet back and strike the ball just as it peaks.” A light Nigerian accent from his days growing up in Lagos punctuates the air, granting the command an exotic flourish.

For more than 12 years now, this is the way Ndukwu has been teaching his protegees across England — in Manchester, Milton Keynes, where he lives with his family, and in Notting Hill — with some students going on to various high-profile academies and others joining college teams in the States. But so far, his pride and joy and greatest success has been Alisha, who in early May, travelled to Ghana for her first ITF tournament, the TFG Open Accra ITF J30 and came away with the title in both singles and doubles, a feat that is rare for most teenagers, let alone a first-timer on the international circuit. This week, she is in Abuja, Nigeria, playing the ITF J30 Abuja at the National Tennis Centre.

“Ghana was my first tournament out of the country, aside from a few in Europe, and it went better than I ever expected,” Alisha says. “ The courts were certainly faster than what I am used to here and I played two very good Ghanaians — the types that just get everything back.

“But I took my game to the net and ended the points aggressively. That game plan saw me through.”

It’s an opportunity the elder Ndukwu was not afforded growing up in Lagos. The son of a steward and a trader with five brothers and sisters, Ndukwu started his tennis career like many other youngsters in Nigeria: he was a ball boy — sometimes called a “ball picker” — at his local tennis club. “We started after school and collected the balls for the paying members until they left for the day and then we could have a hit,” Ndukwu says. “Nigeria is not like it is here. There is no middle class, no diversity, no mixed housing — nothing like having council flats in Notting Hill near parks or tennis clubs.

“The rich people live in one area of the city and have the memberships. And on tour, they can play without worrying about winning. If you’re someone like me — having to win for money to pay the rent or take care of your parents, you get nervous, you get tight and next thing you know, you lose.”

Nonetheless, Ndukwu managed to play some junior tournaments and even worked his way into the ITF Futures events around Africa after gaining a sponsor from Singapore. But eventually, the tour results didn’t come and the funding ran out. Many African tennis federations, including Nigeria’s, struggle to raise money, solicit and receive equipment from overseas, properly instruct coaches and effectively support rising youth and professional players. While the International Tennis Federation (ITF) has run two ITF/CAT advanced training centres for exceptional youth in Casablanca, Morocco and Nairobi, Kenya — most recently consolidating the programmes with a new campus in Tunis, Tunisia — they did not exist in Ndukwu’s youth. He eventually settled in Manchester, and started giving lessons.

And since Alisha took a shine to a tennis racquet, Ndukwu has traded his dad hat for his coaching cap to help her fulfil her dream of turning pro. Two days per week, he devotes entirely to his daughter, and three days per week — with Alisha in tow and doing school online — he commutes from Milton-Keynes, where he and his family live, to teach on West London courts.

“At first it was a bit difficult because I am her dad, but then I realised that she wouldn’t get anywhere if I wasn’t her coach. So I started treating her just like any other student — she gets no breaks from me,” Ndukwu says. “After we’re done for the day, she is my daughter again.”

Alisha Ndukwu also admits the transition took a few weeks, but she adjusted and now prefers her father’s method. “If he was easy on me — if he was my dad all the time — I wouldn’t be winning,” she says. “I used to have a love/hate relationship with having my dad as my coach. “I don’t hit with him all the time, however, now I don’t think I could have anyone else there for me like he is.”

It’s a set of circumstances — despite the sometimes long days and sacrifices — that Ndukwu realises he might not be able to provide for his daughter in Nigeria. Although he usually remains in England when Alisha and her mother travel for tournaments, Ndukwu has returned to Nigeria several times to give coaching seminars and bring balls, shoes and racquets to kids in need. “I’ll always go on eBay before we leave to pick up some gear for the students,” he says.

“I can’t do much — I don’t make that much money. But kids will show up on court in bare feet. They’ll do anything to play down there.”

THE LITTLE-KNOWN HISTORY OF BERLIN’S ICONIC TENNIS CLUBS

The Tennisclub Berlin Mitte Albert Gutzmann, e.V., known to regulars as the “Mitte”, came into existence in the middle of the fall of the Berlin Wall and is now fighting the occupying forces of gentrification. The Mitte must turn its three outdoor courts 90 degrees or otherwise figure out how to make room for another school in growing East Germany.

Eat your heart out USTA. The leagues and the associations of the United States Tennis Association have nothing on the 197 racquet clubs located either in, or a quick bicycle ride from, the Mitte (Middle) district of Berlin.

Even New York, which has the storied New York Athletic Club and West Side Club (otherwise known as Forest Hills), where Billie Jean and Johnny Mac — and all those others famous-nicknamed players flattened balls — can’t compare.

While Berlin itself hasn’t produced a champion, the likes of Boris Becker or Steffi Graf in nearly twenty-five years, the city does know how to court the fifteen percent of Berliners who play the local circuit. The legacies will tell you that TC 1899 e.V. Blau-Weiß (the Blue-White Club) or the Lawn Turnier Tennis Club Rot-Weiß Berlin (Red-White Club) have the best clubhouses (and biergartens), coaches and clay in Germany. But the transplants who live in or frequent the former communist side of the city — neighbourhoods such as Kreuzberg and Schöneberg, past Checkpoint Charlie and the East Side Gallery (aka the remains of the Berlin Wall) — prefer the no-fuss, hole-in-the-alley neighbourhood joints with backyard clay courts, semi-private changing rooms and graffiti murals. There, middle-class players often turn up riding their Donkey Republic app bikes, toting a one-racquet Adidas backpack and wearing their favourite football jersey to play a pick-up set or two. Membership dues often include a grounds-keeping assignment.

Since the Wall went down, Berlin has become the second largest city in the European Union, expected to hit four million people by 2025 — 54 percent of them under 45 years of age. Developers have swooped in on any available space, including clay courts, to build more apartment buildings and townhouses for the burgeoning bourgeoisie. One such club, the TC Berlin Mitte Albert Gutzmann e.V., has been fighting for its life since a local school laid claim to its valuable real estate. To survive, the storied TC Berlin Mitte will have to pull a serious break-point: relocate its three outdoor tennis courts ninety degrees to the East. “Mitte is the district with the largest sports area deficit,” says board member Fred Bruss, adding that the association has 190 members from 27 nations, as well as students from Humboldt University, playing on its courts. “Already in 2016, the club collected thousands of signatures against being forced to close.”

Another photo of T.C. Fredrichshain. The six clay courts and small changing rooms require less upkeep than the courts outside of main Berlin, but Fredrichshain takes care of the maintenance by requiring every member over age 16 to work five hours each season.

During the Open Era, the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) had one star player, Thomas Emmrich, who, according to Martina Navratilova in a 1989 article for the New York Times, “beat all the junior players in Czechoslovakia. He beat people who beat Bjorn Borg at that age. But he never had a chance to play on the outside. They were not allowed, period.” Emmrich took his case to play abroad straight to the Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi and was, unsurprisingly, denied. He said once that he thought about defecting, but worried about reprisals against his parents, who were party members. Emmrich, therefore, bided his time for the Seoul Olympics by racking up national championships at clubs such as Tennis Association SV Berliner Brauereien, currently located next door to a temporary refugee camp in Prenzlauer Berg, as well as Berlin’s only grass courts at the SG Am Hain in Volkspark Friedrichshain. The intrepid tennis pro also smuggled in racquets, tennis shoes and other Western goods from Davis Cup events to pay for his career.

Navratilova predicted a “wave of East German players” when the wall turned to a pile of rubble, and her then-boyfriend, Emmrich did eventually gain a ranking of 482 — the only DDR ranking on record — but that East German surge never undulated through the tennis world. After German reunification, Emmrich’s daughter, Manuela, and son, Martin, took up the torch, as Manuela lead the Armstrong Atlantic State college team to the 2005 U.S. Division II National Championship and Martin achieved a top thirty-five doubles ranking, respectively.

In the mid-1980s, in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), however, a seven-year old teen standout named Boris Becker began training at the TC 1899 Blau-Weiß. Fourteen years Emmrich’s junior, Becker turned pro in 1984 and in 1989, became the face of reunification. Well, he and Steffi Graf. But Graf had a better time cheering on would-be Wall smashers at LTTC Rot-Weiß, just down the street. “I would love to have done it, just to be a part of the moment,” Graf told the  New York Times in 1989. On the other hand, Becker took the responsibility as heavily as the big chunks of souvenir Wall. “When you are thrown onto the stage at 17 in such an enormous way, it becomes living on the edge because every step you take, every word you speak, every action you do becomes headline news. And it became, for me, life or death,” Becker said the same year.

Pointedly, Becker didn’t become as monumental to the anti-communist movement as he possibly thought. However, his trophies still stand in the foyer of TC 1899 Blau-Weiß. Graf, on the other hand, has the “Steffi-Graf Stadion” to visit whenever she leaves Las Vegas for home.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following is a selection of portraits from the city’s oldest — and most delineative, emblematic — clubs from around the barrier that no longer stands.

When the “Mitte” opened its doors in 1989, it commissioned several of the neighborhood street artists to paint its wind tents on the inside and outside of the courts, accommodating the tastes of 200 members from 23 different nations who “have peacefully found each other in tennis, an ideal pastime. We are the club that lies in the melting pot of cultures…”

Although one of the oldest tennis clubs in Berlin on the Prenzlauer Berg, the Tennis Club SV Berliner Brauereien e.V. has a new neighbor: a sub-division of refugee tenements housing migrants from Syria and North Africa that arrived during the 2015 surge.

Detail from the graffiti wall outside the Tennis Club SV Berliner Brauereien e.V. The club runs 24/7 in the park and is a favorite for jet-lagged visitors who pay a nominal fee to play — until a member comes along and kicks them off.

The rules posted on the courts of Tennisclub Berlin Mitte Albert Gutzmann, e.V. The city alleges that the club has been breaking ordinances of its own. For years, Berlin administrators say, the “Mitte” has been using four tennis courts on land owned by a school next door.

Built in 1996, the 7,000-seat Steffi Graf Stadion (Stadium) was added to the LTTC (Lawn Tennis Tournament Club) Rot-Weiß in Berlin’s Grunewald District to provide a larger venue for tournaments, such as the WTA’s German Open. Steffi Graf has been a member of the club since 1984.

A proprietor looks out on the bier garten of the Tennis Club SV Berliner Brauereien e.V. It’s a grand tradition across the city, from the exclusive clubs in Grunewald to those of the former DDR, that competitive play earns a Schöfferhofer cool down. Whether the patio furniture is plastic or wrought iron usually depends on the class of the members.

The LTTC Rot-Weiß, named for the red and white ribbons members once wore in their straw hats, sits amid Grunewald’s green leafy oasis, where the 16 immaculate outdoor and two indoor clay courts rub fences with the consulates and homes of many diplomats sent to Germany. Rot-Weiß was founded in 1897 and is just down the street from TC 1899 eV Blau-Weiß, its strictest competitor.

A fenced in section of the Tennis Club SV Berliner Brauereien e.V. The club’s seven outdoor courts are located in the Volkspark, or the ‘People’s Park’, which evolved from a World War II dumping ground. The park is just around the corner from a statue of Ernst Thälmann, a leading figure of Weimar Germany’s Communist party (KPD) killed in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

With the only grass courts located in Berlin, SG AM Hain in the middle of Volkspark Friedrichshain is in high demand, especially for tourists. The oldest park in Berlin, after German reunification, the swimming pools built by the GDR were replaced by a sports complex, but it has held on to the Monument to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists.

A PSYCHOLOGIST IN… TENNIS?

It's the team-member you’ll see in almost every pro-players’ entourage, here’s why...

During his French Open semi-final match against Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, the 20-year-old Spanish phenom, felt something he never felt before: tension. In fact, Alcaraz was so nervous, he started cramping — so badly, he could not run. “It is not easy to play against Novak…” he said. “If someone says that he gets into the court with no nerves playing against Novak, he lies.”

Djokovic, on the other hand, kept his cool. He could have been rattled by the popular upstart, who has both youth and the fans on his side. Yet, Djokovic remained calm and collected racing to victory in four quick sets. “First and foremost, I have to say tough luck for Carlos,” said Djokovic during his post-match, on-court interview following the match. “At this level, the last thing you want is cramps and physical problems at the late stages of the grand slams. I feel for him…”

Two days later, Djokovic returned to Court Philippe Chatrier and won his 23rd Grand Slam title. Tennis commentators expressed awe, if not surprise, over the Serb’s dominance, trying to analyse his mastery. “There’s no better adjuster to what’s going on, ever. Part of it is because he’s so malleable with his strokes,” said Patrick McEnroe. “(His) level today is higher than it’s ever been” says Mats Wilander. But Jeff Greenwald, watching from his home in California, knew instantly. “He’s likely using a skill he developed as a child in Serbia, Greenwald said.

“NATO forces were conducting air raids to crush Slobodan Milosevic’s government, but despite the sirens and explosions, Djokovic stayed outside and practiced. He and two other Serbian players — Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic — worked their way into the Top 10 from this club in Belgrade.

“Research shows that majority of top athletes who experienced significant difficulty at an early age and overcame it, developed an inner strength that carries them through life. They develop a hunger to train, feel and endure the pain and the drive that is built into sport.”

Greenwald, a sports psychologist, has spent his career coaching his clients into developing Djokovic-like equanimity. He represents the newest addition to pro players’ entourages, the tool that will take top tour achievers, such as Iga Swiatek, Ons Jabeur, Stefanos Tsitsipas and many others, deep into the second weeks of big tournaments. “So everything goes to Melanie Maillard (Jabeur’s French mental coach), of course,” Jabeur told The National in 2022. “When I see that she’s in my box, it helps me a lot. She’s my lucky charm right now.”

Not much practically separates Greenwald from the Maillards, the Daria Abramowiczes (Iga Swiatek’s coach) and the rest of the several dozen other sports psychologists on tour today, according to Greenwald. Like the others, he helps players develop mental toughness, provides them with techniques to handle the stress of matches and other tour responsibilities, teaches them more effective ways to manage their emotions and lastly, assists them in setting clear goals to maximise their potential on the court.

Compared to the other mental coaches, however, Greenwald has been teaching the mental game of tennis — and using his own techniques on court — for possibly the longest: 30-plus years. The author of The Best Tennis of Your Life: 50 Mental Strategies for Fearless Performance, as well as a Nick Bollettieri alumnus and a former tour player, Greenwald also still tries and tests his theories of the tennis mind on the ITF Seniors Tour and through his online course, Fearless Tennis.

“What I do is highly practical. We are all hard-wired with the automatic fight or flight response. I can’t get rid of all the anxiety — and players need some,” says Greenwald, who is traveling to Portugal next month to play the World Individual Championships 55 division. “But I can help them get their minds out of the way of their bodies so that they don’t choke and they don’t find themselves in slumps.

“The tactical margins are so small at the highest level in tennis, so any edge a player can get is going to give them an advantage. They have a conditioning coach and a regular coach at the highest level, most players would say the most important part at the top is their temperament.”

Greenwald would know. A native of Westport, Connecticut who worked with Bollettieri during the famed Florida coach’s “lord of the flies… kill or be killed” early days, by 1983 Greenwald had earned the No. 2 ranking in New England and a No. 59 national ranking. After finishing a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1988 — where he was the number one player and also the team captain — Greenwald joined the ATP tour and earned world rankings in singles and doubles.

Despite occasional wins over Top-200 players, Greenwald grew frustrated with his performance and quit the ITF Futures to move to Hamburg and coach high-ranked juniors, as well as play for a German club team. Competing just a few days a week, Greenwald began to tap into a “state” that allowed him to play better — looser and freer. He also became deeply curious about how the mind and body interact — or don’t — during the high-pressure moments of athletic competition.

Greenwald moved to San Francisco and earned master’s degrees in clinical psychology and sport psychology. In 1998, he opened Mental Edge International to help struggling athletes reach their potential and consequently, became the 2002’s top ITF senior player in the world, winning eleven National Titles and two ITF World Championships.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote ‘Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. Success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it,’” Greenwald says. “The better you get in the game, the less your self-worth is on the table — ladies playing at 4.0 or 3.5 feel more pressure than Novak Djokovic or Nadal.

“The focus on the social consequences or ramifications are so great, that there is a lot of overthinking. The brain is used to overthinking all day long and the mind goes to a technique which it shouldn’t. I help people adjust their inner dial, and let go of tension, or use their intensity to focus on things like footwork, and even if it’s the wrong thing, one specific thing will calm your mind and help you be present.”

Although he started in cognitive behavioural psychology, Greenwald has recently taken up the “new wave” in psychology: Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). Through ACT, players learn to stop avoiding, denying and struggling with their inner emotions and, instead, accept that these deeper feelings are appropriate responses to certain situations that should not prevent them from moving forward. “Federer used to get angry and throw his racquets, but people behind the scenes helped him work on it. Novak hit his slump and survived it with a psychologist,” Greenwald says.

The California mental coach has been invited into sit in players’ boxes and go on tour, but work and family keep him in California, he says, using teleconferencing to see patients in all sports, but mostly tennis. “Iga (Swiatek) really opened another door when she publicly announced, ‘I would like to thank my sports psychologist’ after she won the French Open and it will only grow from there,” Greenwald says.

He believes, however, that the next evolution in his field of expertise would come about by training otherwise ordinary coaches in sports psychology. “It’s hard to have it all — the physio and coach and sports psychologist. It gets cost prohibitive for most.

“Going forward, coaches will likely get more educated in the peak performance but not necessarily with the anxiety and depression and other mental issues, so I am not going to train myself out of a job,” he says. “Tennis by nature is unique in the amount of pressure — rivalry, intense parents, fans, expectations, getting into college, on tour. It’s all very stressful. You don’t want the sharks to see blood.”

You can check out more from Jeff Greenwald over at www.fearlesstennis.com

POSTCARD FROM ROME

Who will emerge victorious at the Foro Italico when the clay is dry. Queen Iga or Arnya? King Novak or Carlos?

The Italian Open is one of the most sought-after tickets on the way to Paris. In 2023, the Italian Tennis Federation awarded yet another wild card to one of the most iconic Italian players of modern era, Fabio Fognini who boasts most victories of any Italian man in the Open Era, highlighted by the biggest win of his career over No. 1 Murray at the Foro Italico in 2017 (and repeated to knock out the former grand slam winner in round one of 2023)! Two years later, in 2019, he became the first Italian ATP Masters 1000 champion, beating Nadal for the third time on clay. Turning to the women’s, in 2022 Ons Jabeur — from near that other ancient Roman City, Carthage, Tunisia — came close to capturing the title, but the reigning WTA No. 1, Iga Świątek kept her crown.

Built between 1932 and 1938 for the 1940 Olympics — ultimately diverted to Helsinki before being cancelled — the Foro Italico (once the Foro Mussolini) offers competitors 15 clay tennis courts and the Stadio Olimpico,  a 10,500 arena that opened in 2010 to replace the former centre court. The proverbial Court No. 1 is Stadio Nicola Pietrangeli, renamed in 2006 after one of Italy’s best tennis players. With a capacity of 3,720, this court is surrounded by 18 marble statues, depicting Olympic athletes. Beginning life as the “Olimpico della racchetta” (Olympic Racket Stadium), it hosted one of the first Davis Cup matched between Italy and Switzerland in 1934.

PLAY

Circolo Parioli is a prestigious tennis club situated in the elegant residential Parioli neighbourhood, nestled amongst a maze of tree-lined streets and lush gardens (including the Villa Borghese Park, one of Rome’s most beautiful gardens open to the public). After hitting on the plus 20 courts or taking a dip in the pool, your appetite will be up and it won’t be disappointed in Parioli which is a big player in Rome’s gastronomy scene. Visit the traditional and well-loved Ambasciata D’Abruzzo for traditional Roman cuisine before walking it off in the Borghese Gallery amongst the art of Bernini, Caravaggio, Canova and Raphael.

Psst…member tip: One of our Roman members told us to keep this under our visors but we can’t resist. Top five best places for an aperitivo in Rome and frequented by locals includes Duke’s which is situated in the Parioli neighbourhood. It’s also a good spot for lunch or dinner with a bit of music (and possible dancing) on Fridays. Happy hour is 18:00 – 20:00.

A slightly smaller but no less premium club in Rome is the Circolo Aniene Tennis Club bedded in the tranquil green surrounds of the Aniene River. The club boasts six tournament standard red clay courts and indoor and outdoor swimming pools. The club was initially a rowing club, founded in 1892, a testament to its proximity and long standing relationship with the city of Rome and the Aniene river which gently flows past the club and then joins the Tiber in northern Rome.

MUST SEE

Of course, in the capital of Catholicism, the Vatican museums followed by St Peter’s Basilica, beckon the fervent and the agnostic. Skip the lines with a private tour guide. Besides the other must-sees (the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain), for art-lovers you’ll want to dig into the Galleria Borghese Museum.  Simply walking around Rome’s central streets in the vicinity of the Pantheon is a treat and a constant (in a good way) history lesson. Take a load off with a refreshing beverage adjacent to this most preserved monument of Ancient Rome and watch the world go by.

SLEEP

The All Court Tennis Club partners with hotels around the world, providing our members with unique benefits such as preferential rates and perks.  If you’d like to become a complimentary member of the All Court Tennis Club (and we’d certainly like that!) visit our membership page here.

Hotel Russie

We like the Rocco Forte hotel group generally, and in Italy especially.  We partner with their Sicilian tennis (and golf (and beach)) resort, the Verdura Resort in Italy for example.  Their Hotel Russie in the Italian capital is one of our picks for a drink in Rome, but you should also experience a night or two here if you can.  Its unassuming exterior belies the treasure trove that awaits within, with the lobby exuding an air of understated luxury.  Marble floors, ornate chandeliers, and carefully curated artwork whisper stories of the city’s rich history.

For those seeking unparalleled views, the suites at Hotel Russie are the way to go. Picture yourself on a private terrace, sipping a glass of fine Italian wine while gazing out over the iconic rooftops of Rome. The panoramic vistas of the city’s landmarks, including the Spanish Steps and Piazza del Popolo, paint a breathtaking backdrop that amplifies the romance and allure of the Italian capital.

You can start your day with breakfast at Le Jardin de Russie, a courtyard oasis adorned with vibrant flowers and cascading vines and the hotel’s opulent spa, situated in the ancient ruins of Rome’s stone theatre, is a special indulgence after those long shopping and sight seeing walks.

A FASHIONABLE SERVE THROUGH TENNIS HISTORY

Exploring iconic fashion moments and the evolution of on-court style.

In 1923, French Davis Cup player Rene Lacoste was admiring a crocodile leather suitcase when his coach, Allan Muhr, told him that if he won his next match, he would buy Lacoste the case. Lacoste lost, but the nickname “crocodile” stuck. Lacoste asked his friend, Robert George, to create a crocodile patch so he could sew them onto the white jackets Lacoste wore on various courts around the world. Soon, Lacoste affixed an alligator to a smaller, lose-fitting cotton shirt and voila, tennis changed the fashion world.

Since that time, however, many a designer (and tennis player) has endeavoured to make their mark on the clothing industry, if not in the annals of tennis history. Ted Tinling, a lapsed player who designed dresses for almost all of the great female players throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, is probably at the top of the list, but you can’t count out Tory Burch, who played as a kid, or Venus Williams’ EleVen brand. Even Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss have stepped into the tennis trade.

2021 was the year of the vintage reboot (Fila, Sergio Tacchini, Ellesse and Diadora) while 2022 saw a number of fashion start-ups (Jelena Ostapenko in Latvian brand DK One and Camila Giorgi in GioMila), but 2023 so far has been a mix of shifting loyalties, running-shoe-turned-tennis brands and the designer-player pairings (think Virgil Abloh for Nike).

IGA dons On Running:

In probably the biggest switch since Federer left Nike, Iga Świątek traded one running company for another — Japanese-based ASICS for Swiss-and-Roger-Federer-backed On Running —announcing in mid-March that she would become the On Running girl. Not only the clothes, but also the shoes. Although the current WTA No. 1, will keep the Asics firmly on her feet until the On shoes are finalised. But where does On come from, exactly? Founded in the late 2010s in Zurich, On Running has made it their mission “to make high-performance products with the lowest possible footprint.” It’s other claim to fame: innovative CloudTec design that promises athletes the feeling of “running on clouds.” Created by a three-time world duathlon champion who built his first shoe with hose pipe under another shoe’s sole for propulsion, On Running has also promised Iga quick-drying polyester and “recycled polyamide” based shorts and shirts, as well as “supplier transparent” performance shirts and warm-up suits. What does she have to say about her new kit? Well, mostly that the ultimate tennis fashionista convinced her. “I think also (Roger) influenced a lot on their side, so that’s why they want to go further and they want to sign players… I feel like we share the same values,” Iga said in a press conference around the Miami Open. “I feel like they’re treating me first like a person and not mainly as a machine to win.” And it seems the company is willing to share logo space with Iga’s other sponsor, Poland’s biggest insurance company, PZU.

Sofia Kenin sports FreePeople:

In maybe one of the stranger pairings of late, Sofia Kennin, who came and went in seemingly a blink, announced a two-year sponsorship deal to bring FP Movement — Free People’s activewear line — into the tennis world. For those unfamiliar with Free People, it’s possibly a brand more associated with Bohemian types than sports people. But Sofia wants to  build a bridge. “I love that new and innovative brands like FP Movement are entering our sport and feel honored that they have selected me to represent their brand,” she said. So far, the Kenin line includes flowing, feminine tennis dresses, jackets with sleeves adorned with the word “Movement” and midrift freeing crop tops and skirts. And if the tennis career doesn’t work out, Kenin claims: “I’d love to do something in fashion — not a fashion designer because I can’t really draw — but maybe a stylist…” Right now, that career seems closer, with Kenin absent from the top-100 for two years now.

DKOne for Jelena Ostapenko:

In 2022, Jelena Ostapenko ditched plain ol’ Adidas for frills and colourful patterns in a throwback that some may call more disco than dynamic. Prior to the pandemic and thinking about her future post-tennis, Ostapenko partnered with Daniela K., another Latvian tennis player, and came up with DKOne, the embodiment of “comfort, originality and quality.” However, she quickly found out that there was no such thing as fast fashion: “It all looks very easy, but when you start going through all the steps — Oh, my God!” Ostapenko told the WTA news site. “First you have to do the patterns and the shapes. Then there is the fabric. Then you can do the design. The colours come last.” The Latvian known for her expressive faces and her cut-to-the-chase demeanour appeared at the 2022 Australian Open donning a baby blue top and fluorescent yellow shorts. And don’t expect any tonal colours in the future, either. “Bright colours are my favourite,” Ostapenko said. “The neon pink, the neon yellow, the neon green. The blue, too.”

Lululemon Signs Leylah Fernandez:

Ubiquitous in yoga studios all over New York for years now — by men and women, alike — Lululemon has made its way onto tennis courts by those who don’t want to be seen as “hardcore tennis players.” But now the brand has firmly embraced their presence on the big stages through Canadian Leylah Fernandez. “I have always wanted to be original, different from the tennis players and be my own unique person,” Fernandez has said.  “When I heard Lululemon wanted to get on the big stage in tennis, I thought it was a great opportunity for me.” Lululemon put Fernandez in the brand’s core products for the season’s debut, but under Fernandez, its first global tennis ambassador, Lululemon will launch its first tennis-specific capsule collection for both women and men any day now. Like Kenin, Fernandez too wants to have more of her “outgoing personality” in her clothing designs. “”I want to have everything perfect so when I am on the court, I don’t think about anything,” Fernandez says. “I am always wearing stuff I am comfortable with that makes me feel invincible, so when I’m playing tennis, I just need to focus on tennis.” And although still in Asics footwear, she too, will put on the company’s exclusive shoe line come summer. “I know for a fact I will continue wearing Lululemon 24-7, which is what I am doing right now,” she says.

Giomila by Camilia Giorgi’s mother:

The top female player in Italy and a consistent presence in the women’s Top 30s, Camilia Giorgi might be described as a bit of a wallflower if not for her often unique, frequently revealing, tennis outfits designed by her mother, Claudia. Known to be one of the hardest hitters on tour, lately, neither Giorgi nor her dresses can catch a break. At the French Open, an official debated with her over the size of the DeLonghi logo on her dress, while others at the U.S. Open and other majors have complained about her plunging necklines and high hemlines. Giorgi dismissed her critics. “When I’m in the court, in the tournament, (I’m) very focused. I do my physical, everything. When I go home, there is other things in life, too,” Giorgi explained. In her spare time, Giorgi models lingerie.

Castore x Andy Murray:

Before Andy Murray retired, lost Under Armour as his sponsor, and gained a metal hip, very few Brits — or anyone else — had ever heard of J.Carter Sporting Club Limited (aka Castore) a Manchester-based sports performance clothing company. Within two years of Murray’s investment in the company and the launch of the AMC line, those double wings are everywhere — from the walls of the LTA’s South London headquarters to the football uniforms of the Wolverhampton Wanderers, Aston Villa and McLaren Racing. Billed as “Better Never Stops” (the same could be said of Murray), Castore’s founders Thomas and Philip Beahon worked as financial analysts in London while they sought investors for their brand, initially aimed for golfers and cricketers. And although he is no longer British No. 1, Sir Andy’s endorsement seems to have carried the brand to 50 countries and 12 sports, including the Team Bahrain Victorious cycling squad. Up next: pushing out Ralph Lauren as the official sponsor of Wimbledon.