When I was younger, my father was a tennis coach at the Fashion Institute of Technology (no less). For reasons I’ll never understand, Manhattan’s top fashion school required physical education classes, and if you were a student there in the 1980s or 1990s, my father probably taught you how to hit. Even after he retired, he still dressed appropriately, walking around Boca Raton in a Sergio Tacchini tracksuit.
My father also coached us kids, with varying degrees of success. My brother went on to play Division I tennis at Cornell; I quit the high school team to audition for the musical. My father didn’t contradict me on this point, but I know he was disappointed. “Tennis is a sport you can play all your life,” he said.
I didn’t pick up a racket for the next 25 years, first out of pride, then out of fear. Could I still play? But lately I’ve realized that I missed the special sweat that comes from an hour of screaming forehands from the baseline. I missed the smell of the court. And I missed fashion, an obsession rekindled by Challengers—or more precisely, the image of Mike Faist in short shorts. But I really missed my dad. And nothing would surprise him more than to see me on the field after all these years. If Faist could star in the musical (or at least in Spielberg’s), he would be happy. West Side Story) and play convincing enough tennis on screen, maybe I didn’t have to choose.
Tennis Essentials T&C
Monica Rich Kosann Tennis Bracelet
RLX Ralph Lauren Women’s Tennis Dress
Aerin Canvas Tennis Racket Cover
Brunello Cucinelli Tennis Sweater
Anya Hindmarch Custom Tennis Balls
If I wanted to confront my demons, I had to make time for exercise, which is how I found myself on a plane to Austria for a stay at Stanglwirt, a 400-year-old family resort in the Tyrolean Alps that looks like the backdrop to The sound of music. The vibe is that of an Aspen ski lodge with a Vienna twist. Over the years, the hotel has hosted Clark Gable, Muhammad Ali, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s the kind of place where a pillow menu sits on the nightstand. Naturally, the hotel offers in-room dog sitting services.
But more importantly, for my purposes, they have a large tennis academy with eight clay courts, six indoor courts and a vast spa to relax tired muscles. The plan was to take classes during the week. And I was in good company: Austria’s Dominic Thiem, who won the US Open in 2020, sometimes warms up at the Stanglwirt before July’s Generali Open, an official stop on the ATP Tour.
Traveling to play tennis is a contact sport in and of itself, even for us mere mortals. In late June, the Bryan brothers will host a three-day camp at the Stanglwirt. Black Tomato, the high-end consulting firm known for its luxury experiential travel, often sends clients to Puente Romano in Marbella, where Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, and John McEnroe have all played. (Puente Romano clients can take lessons from Marko Djokovic, Novak’s little brother.) And if you find yourself on Richard Branson’s Necker Island, his personal trainer is available for training sessions.
Stanglwirt, a luxury destination in Austria’s Tyrolean Alps, is home to a tennis academy, eight clay courts, six indoor courts and a recovery spa.
The stakes are high. Stephanie Reiner of the travel agency For the Love of Traveling tells me she once organized a girls’ trip to Sea Island, Georgia, for a group of elite tennis players. When her client realized she’d accidentally left her clay shoes at home, Reiner sent a local pro shop to the hotel, where they set up a product expo on the court. Crisis averted. Here’s the truth: No one wants to lose, not even on vacation. Especially in Curtain Bluff, Antigua, where visitors vie to reserve Stadium Court at sunset. “You’ll see a lot of customers come by then,” says one coach, Karim King. Turns out, we all want an audience.
The same atmosphere can be found at the Stanglwirt, a hotel that once had more tennis courts than rooms. Maria Hauser, daughter of owner Balthasar Hauser, remembers visitors from all over the region coming to play tennis in her family’s hotel, followed by a plate of veal. schnitzel At the inn’s traditional restaurant. When the players asked why they couldn’t stay, his father drew up plans to expand. The Stanglwirt now offers 171 rooms and suites, as well as a tennis academy under the Peter Burwash brand, run by Petra Russegger, an Austrian once ranked 259th in the world. As a junior, Petra faced Anna Kournikova. Now she has to join me.
At Puente Romano in Marbella, guests can take tennis lessons with Marko Djokovic, the younger brother of Novak Djokovic. Sports stars who have played on the property’s courts include Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and John McEnroe.
Coming back into the field after two decades was stressful, so I wanted to at least look like I was playing. Loewe designer Jonathan Anderson made the costumes for The challengers—and now (less famously) for my own tennis comeback. I had bought a bunch of his JW Anderson for Uniqlo collaboration with Roger Federer on eBay and laced them up.
“It’s like riding a bike,” Petra assured me. And in a way, she was right. Despite my absence from the sport, my forehand remained surprisingly intact. What I had forgotten – and what is really distorted when watching Wimbledon from the couch – is the absurd distance of 25 metres between the baselines. Petra seemed a kilometre away.
We started slowly with groundstrokes before moving on to volleys and finally serves. Any fear of embarrassment quickly dissipated. Not because I was that good (I was), but because of the setting. The Stanglwirt’s red clay courts are set against the backdrop of the Wilder Kaiser mountain, a snowy behemoth where cheesemakers toil in cliffside huts all summer. (By the end of the season, no less than the Austrian army is called in to haul the cheese down the mountain.) Architectural summary I have already included the Stanglwirt courts in my list of the “28 most beautiful courts in the world”. Believe me, no one was looking at my backhand. I felt alive.
Necker Island guests can play tennis with hotel professionals and, if they’re lucky, with owner Richard Branson himself. Be warned, he’s good.
I played again the next day, this time with coach Dave Hong, who had previously taught at Las Ventanas in Cabo and One & Only in the Maldives, and we got to know him a little better. I was holding my racket too tight, he told me, which is probably a metaphor for something. “Try different grips,” he advised, “see what works for you, understand your instrument. Back then, they taught you to go forward, follow through, bend your knees. And it’s fine if the ball is always in the same place. What happens if you can’t get into that position?”
I relaxed. I ran to shoot in the corner. And somewhere along the way, I stopped hearing my father yell “from the bottom up!” and remembered what he looked like. I remembered his smile from 25 yards away. He could be a ruthlessly competitive player (even more so in retirement, where he was known to swear loudly on the court). But he always found joy in the game, and I think he wanted the same for me.
On the third day, Petra complimented me on my serve. More importantly, she advised me to keep playing once I got home. “Tennis is a lifelong sport,” she said, unwittingly echoing my father.
The irony of a Jewish man flying to Munich to reconnect with his father was not lost on me. But the truth is, I felt closer to him than I had in years. He could never have imagined playing on a clay court in the Austrian Alps. (Or that the hotel’s milk came from an on-site dairy farm.) And he would have absolutely hated the movie. The challengers—from the CGI tennis ball to the absurd final point. Yet he would have loved that part where Zendaya says in the film: “Tennis is a relationship.”
My aching muscles (and heart to boot) retreated to the Stanglwirt’s heated saltwater outdoor pool. Then I headed to the lobby bar, which is exactly what you’d expect from an Austrian chalet. Picture miles of naturally scented pine trees, a pub band playing Oasis covers on a small stage, and two friendly bartenders named Bernd and Philipp mixing drinks, telling you how they drove 90 minutes to find shrubs deep in the woods for their own homemade liqueur. Raise a glass (or four), sleep long, repeat. Tennis, anyone?
Mickey Rapkin is a journalist and screenwriter. His first book, Pitch Perfect, inspired the film series. A former editor-in-chief of GQ, he has written for the New York Times, the WSJ, and National Geographic. He lives in Los Angeles.
