18 February 6, 2022The Sunday TimesHome
Leconte, a top-ten tennis pro
in the 1980s and 1990s. From
June 9 to 12 Leconte will host
clinics, exhibition matches
and a golf tournament.
Villas del Tenis at Abama
are 23 detached three-
bedroom homes adjacent to
the tennis academy,
surrounded by the golf course
and with views to the sea.
Prices start from €1.265
million.SARDINIA
The Forte Village on Sardinia
adds an Italian flourish to
every tennis lesson. The 13
red-clay courts are overseen
by Rocco Loccisano, former
coach to Wimbledon winner
Pat Cash, who brings in former
tennis pros for exhibition
matches and tournaments.
It is the second largest
Mediterranean island —
with standout beaches
and a mountainous
interior — and property
prices vary.
On the northeast
coast in the hills
above San Teodoro
a villa with five
bedrooms, garden
and pool is
€695,000.TENERIFE
Sunshine, year-round
temperatures between 20C
and 30C and a backdrop of
palm trees and banana groves
(yes, some overbuilding too)
all within four and a half hours
of the UK make Tenerife a
smash hit. On the prime
southwest coast, 30 minutes
from the airport, Abama is a
golf and leisure resort in 400
luxuriantly landscaped acres
with a five-star Ritz-Carlton
Hotel. Affluent patrons come
for the golf course and the
tennis and padel centre (padel
is a tennis/squash hybrid).
Last week Abama
announced plans for a
wellness weekend with HenriA
final backhand
volley sealed Rafa
Nadal’s on-court
victory at the
Australian Open
last weekend, the first man to
win 21 grand slams with an
undisputable seat among the
sporting greats. Off-court too,
Nadal is making noise. In 2016,
on his home island of
Mallorca, he opened the Rafa
Nadal Tennis Academy by
Movistar, an event attended by
his fellow tennis legend Roger
Federer. Alongside juniors
training full-time, the
academy offers short coaching
courses to keen amateurs.
The success of Emma
Raducanu at the US Open,
the drama over Novak
Djokovic’s deportation from
Melbourne and Nadal’s
Spanish swagger have put the
sport in the spotlight. Here are
the best locations to net.MALLORCA
Mallorca and tennis were
always a seamless fit. The
island has about 70 clubs, 600
courts, a further 200 hotels
with tennis facilities and hosts
an annual ATP tournament.
Popular beachfront areas
include Santanyi and Cala d’Or
to the south, where average
property prices are €400,000
for flats and €1.8 million for
substantial villas. The town of
Arta in the northeast has
apartments averaging
€350,000 and villas at €1.9
million. The estate agency
Engel & Völkers have
fincas and villas with private
tennis courts for sale. In
the centre of the
island a four-
bedroom villa
with garden,
guest house
and pool is
€2.375 million.A four-bedroom villa with a tennis court
near Arta in the northeast of Mallorca is on
sale for €2.95 million with Engel & VölkersProperties at Blue Pearl, a development of
32 flats overlooking Nice, start from
€398,000 with Sphere EstatesTHE ALGARVE
The Algarve and tennis are
made for each other: look at
Quinta do Lago’s Campus
sports complex, the Annabel
Croft Academy at Pine Cliffs
and Vale do Lobo.
Good two-bedroom
apartments within ten
minutes of a beach start from
€300,000 and detached
villas from €600,000. On the
elite estates of Vale do Lobo
and Quinta do Lago, the
estate agency QP Savills has
homes from €500,000 up to
€15 million for a newly built
six-bedroom home. New
three to five-bedroom villas at
Pine Cliffs, 30 minutes from
Faro airport overlooking the
Atlantic beaches, start
from €2.9 million, all
with private pools
and gardens.MARBELLA
There’s no shortage of
courts along the Costa del
Sol, from the sporting
estate of Sotogrande all the
way east to Marbella. Puente
Romano on Marbella’s Golden
Mile, 45 minutes from Malaga,
is a hotel with tennis heritage.
The club was opened by Bjorn
Borg in 1979 and it’s where
Djokovic was snapped playing
before his ill-fated trip to
Melbourne last month.
Taylor Wimpey España has
new-builds on the Costa
del Sol from two-
bedroom flats at La
Cala Golf from
€250,000 to
four-bedroom
penthouses at
Sotogrande for
€2.247 million.NICE
Patrick Mouratoglou Academy
bills itself as the most
successful tennis academy in
the world, and with alumni
including Serena Williams and
Stefanos Tsitsipas, it has a
point. Its location is certainly
A-grade, in Sophia-Antipolis
between Nice and Cannes on
the French Riviera. Nice Lawn
Tennis Club, established in
1890, remains one of the
most prestigious in France
and a short train ride away.
Directly on the Med, the
Monte Carlo Country Club,
where Nadal has won the
Rolex Masters a record 11
times, has perhaps the world’s
most scenic tennis court.
Sphere Estates estate agency
has apartments at L’Exclusive
in Nice from €330,000 for one
to three bedrooms.Cathy Hawker seeks out the best European destinations to practise your topspin
ANYONE FOR
TENNIS?
Porto Cristo in
Mallorca, the
home island
of Rafa Nadal,
pictured below
during the
Australian Open.
The Rafa Nadal
Tennis Centre,
inset, is in
Manacor,
Mallorca‘WE DO DRILLS AND
PLAY POINTS’
The regular tennis
coaching courses
are an important
part of James
Beaton’s day
when at his home
in Vale do Lobo in
the Algarve. James
and his wife, Catherine,
right, from
Buckinghamshire, bought
a two-bedroom apartment
close to the resort’s tennis
centre in 2009 and visit
several times a year. “I join
the daily courses that run
from 9am to 11am each
morning,” James says.
“We do drills and play
points. The coaching is
very good, the courts are
in top condition and it’s
very sociable. It gives a
good shape to the day
when we are there.”
Their affection for Vale
do Lobo led them to swap
their apartment for a Vale
do Lobo villa, a better
space for three children
and five grandchildren
and still an easy walk
to the tennis club.WESTEND 61/GMBH/HANS BLOSSEY/ANDY ASTFALCK/ORANGE PICS/ALAMY