Until very recently, the heartening reports about the growth of tennis did not seem to have had much impact on the resort and camp landscape. Suddenly, however, there is a raft of good news there as well. Within the last 18 months, two handsome new tennis facilities have opened—the Boulevard Village & Tennis Club in Vero Beach, Fla., and the Inn at Palmetto Bluffs in Bluffton, S.C. And a third, the Turning Stone Resort in Verona, N.Y., is on the drawing board.

Elsewhere, several resorts have opted to supplement their own tennis offerings with adult or junior programs bearing the names of Sánchez-Casal, Evert, and Patrick McEnroe. Still others have spent money improving their tennis complexes to make them more appealing. So as you plan your next tennis vacation, here’s a quick overview of some of the new or improved options now available to you.

Boulevard Village & Tennis Club

Kurt Grabher, one of the individuals behind the $3 million tennis club at the heart of Boulevard Village (www.blvdtennis.com), has a long history of catering to the needs of avid tennis players. For more than two decades, he has run New England Tennis Holidays camps for adults in New Hampshire and Vermont.

When it came time to build this facility, Kurt and his partner, Sue Rodman, knew what they wanted. Rodman, shared his vision and had the ability to raise the capital to make it happen. “Our dream has been to be the club where people come to eat, drink, and play tennis,” she told me.

Their design clusters 13 Har-Tru courts on three sides of a handsome clubhouse containing a casual restaurant and bar, pro shop, and game and meeting rooms. Broad covered decks just off the restaurant encourage hanging out to view matches. Adjacent to the clubhouse are a fitness center—its suite of equipment chosen specifically to meet the needs of tennis players—and a free-form swimming pool. Thirty-two courtside villas, with full kitchens and washers and dryers, extend along the western side of the courts, while to the south rises the first phase of what will eventually be another 66 townhomes. The entire complex borrows its architectural style from Key West.

During a stay guests effectively become members, eligible for programs on the weekly calendar, like the two-hour Rock ‘n’ Roll drill sessions, where I was paired with Sally Fish (mother of current touring pro Mardy Fish, who lives in Vero Beach) in some of the competitive games. Former touring pro Mikael Pernfors wandered by one afternoon, now himself a resident after purchasing a three-bedroom townhome.

Unlike Grabher’s New England operations, however, the Boulevard is not offering week-in and week-out tennis camps. Instead he’s elected to focus on custom-tailored programs designed around the needs of individuals, groups, or teams. Tell him what you want and he’ll carpenter together a suitable package, which can include lodging in the villas or townhomes, advice about local restaurants, and directions to the beach, which is a short drive away.

Grabher has succeeded in making the courts a magnet for members and guests. When you’re not on court, there’s plenty of tennis to watch, whether it’s matches among high-school kids, afternoon junior programs, league matches, or pickup games.

The Inn at Palmetto Bluff

From the porch on my cottage, I am looking across the May River at the distant outline of South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island. As the crow—or more appropriately the snowy egret—flies, Hilton Head is only five miles east, but the Inn at Palmetto Bluff (www.palmettobluffresort.com) where I’m staying has little in common with Hilton Head other than views of a marshy landscape.

As I sit on the porch two dolphins surface in the river (a tidal estuary, really), startling a small flock of mergansers. Behind me, inside the cottage, a fire burns in the gaslog fireplace and Faith Hill is belting out “If You Fly Away” on one of several CDs and DVDs provided with a surround-sound multimedia system and 42-inch plasma television. So although I am remote from the civilization as defined by the most famous of South Carolina’s barrier islands, I am bathed in creature comforts.

The Inn at Palmetto Bluff is the newest addition to the tennis landscape in this part of South Carolina’s Low Country. One of the resorts in the Auberge collection, the Inn is the centerpiece of a 20,000-acre parcel of unspoiled maritime forest and marshes near Bluffton on the mainland. Unlike the barrier islands, it has no beach, but makes up for it in soul-soothing tranquility and opportunity for selfish indulgence. (Excursions by boat to the beach on Daufuskie Island, just off Hilton Head Island, are available.)

At the resort core is a village green, anchored by the sections of the stone pillars that once graced the front of a 72-room mansion that stood on this spot. Bordering the green are a tiny steepled chapel, a post office and gallery, a bakery/bookstore called Buffalos, a real estate office, a carriage house (source of bicycles or golf carts for getting around), and River House, a three-story clapboard mansion with broad verandahs that houses the check-in desk, a small clothing shop, and the main restaurant and bar.

It’s a 10-minute walk or a quick bike ride from the cottages to the Wilson Sports Complex, named for Richard Wilson, who built the 72-room mansion that has since fallen into ruins. It consists of two professional croquet courts and two bocce courts, anchored by a large pro shop and pavilion with cedar-shake shingles on its roof and siding. Arrayed around the perimeter are eight Har-Tru tennis courts laid out singly and in pairs and sporting wooden fence poles, cedar-shingled wooden gazebos with ceiling fans, sub-surface watering, and a forest backdrop. It is an exceptionally tranquil and pleasant place to play.

Tennis director Warren Florence, who once ranked as high as No. 5 in South Carolina, skews his programming toward the weekends when property owners frequently visit (otherwise the local population is 27). He runs clinics for adults and juniors, a social round robin every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and a member-guest tournament with rackets-only event Friday evening (hotel guests are considered members) over major holidays. During the week, he may schedule exhibition or, if there’s demand, clinics.

Florence expects to see the calendar of weekly activities evolve as demand rises. Meanwhile, he’s always eager to custom-design packages—often bundling in spa services—for groups or teams. Of his approach to teaching, Florence says, “I teach that you have four tools: Your eyes, your feet, your imagination, and then your racket,” he told me. “If the first three aren’t working, then the fourth won’t do you much good.”

And beyond

Another tennis facility is on the horizon. At Turning Stone Resort (www.turningstone.com) on Oneida Indian lands in Verona, N.Y., plans call for the construction of eight hard courts, half of them surfaced with Rebound Ace. Four will be indoors. Turning Stone is an expansive development with several hotels—among them an elegant lodge—more than half a dozen restaurants, five designer golf courses, a spa, a casino, and a showroom for headline entertainment.

The family-run Sea Island Resorts (www.seaisland.com) on Sea Island, Ga., meanwhile, is in the midst of a sea change. The Cloister, the Spanish Mediterranean hotel Addison Mizner built in 1928, was torn down and recreated with new opulence a few hundred yards away on the Black Banks River. The Cloister tennis complex also succumbed during this makeover but has been replaced with a handsome collection of eight Har-Tru courts adjacent to a new 65,000-square-foot spa and fitness center, all just steps from the new hotel. “The reaction of the guests has been fabulous,” says longtime tennis director Dickie Anderson. “One of our first people through the door said, ‘If God played tennis, this is where He’d come.’”

But physical changes aren’t the only improvements to America’s tennis landscape. The most stunning new development is the creation of a Florida branch of Spain’s renowned Academia Sánchez-Casal (www.asc-florida.com). Former tour players Sergio Casal and Emilio Sánchez Vicario chose the 38-court Naples Tennis Club & Resort (www.tennisnaples.com) in Naples, Fla., as their North American venue. They’ve installed a junior academy offering everything from short-term camps to full-time training under a staff of Spanish, American, and international coaches. For adults, the camps Curly Davis has been running at Naples Tennis Club continue under his direction, though they are now part of the Sánchez-Casal academy and have adopted its training methods.

Over in Boca Raton, the Evert Tennis Academy (www.evertacademy.com) is completing the construction of additional lodging, a state-of-the-art gym, and a players’ lounge and game room. Once work is complete, the USTA Player Development Program currently headquartered in Key Biscayne will move to the Evert academy. The academy has also introduced a series of adult clinics from Thanksgiving to late April at the nearby Boca Raton Resort & Club (www.bocaresort.com).

To the south in Coral Gables, the Grove Isle Hotel & Spa has renamed its 12-court complex the Patrick McEnroe Tennis Center. It continues to offer basic adult programs; however, the affiliation with McEnroe brings with it a junior academy (www.pmactrainingcenter.com) mainly for local kids but open to children of hotel guests as well.

New staff and programs have also enhanced the tennis at the Oglebay Resort & Conference Center (www.oglebay-resort.com) in a municipal park in Wheeling, West Va. Marc S. White, who formerly ran a popular tennis school at Litchfield Beach & Tennis Resort, now directs operations on the park’s 16 clay courts in summer and at the four indoor hard courts in nearby Wheeling Park in winter. The resort and park are popular with families for their diverse recreation, which includes golf, horseback riding, swimming, and hiking. White runs a variety of adult and junior programs, including some junior camps, during the busy summer months, and custom-designed tennis school sessions for groups and teams.

Finally, several resorts have added to or upgraded their tennis complexes. Topnotch Resort & Spa (www.topnotchresort.com) in Stowe, Vt., resurrected its old stadium court (remember the Head Classic) in order to host the Fed Cup tie in July. TOPS’L Beach & Racquet Resort (www.topsl.com) in Destin, Fla., replaced its two hard courts with clay as part of a general upgrade that includes wooden fencing and an enhanced players’ lounge and pro shop. Out west, Peter Burwash International pros Scott Anders and Eric Gessner took over management of the Lodge at Ventana Canyon (www.lodgeatventanacanyon.com) in Tucson, Ariz., and immediately set out to resurface all 11 of its hard courts (the stadium, sadly, is too damaged to be salvageable) and expand the tennis options.
All of this means you have even more to look forward to the next time you’re planning a tennis vacation.

Tennis Life Travel Editor Roger Cox is the editor and founder of Tennis Resorts Online (www.tennisresortsonline.com), the Internet’s leading source of tennis travel information