English Tennis on the Italian Riveria
If only every tennis club in England looked like this one...
Rally: Celebrating Courts Around the World
The entrance of the Hanbury Tennis Club, featuring a Georgian-era postbox and a Black Taxi Cab.
Just beyond the train tracks of the regional rail to Genoa and around the small church on Via Michelangelo, lies the Hanbury Tennis Club — the perfect place for an English grass court player to fall in love with the dirt. Founded in 1923 by Daniel Hanbury, a young Brit who immigrated to Italy to build his own All-England Lawn Tennis Club, the Hanbury has 12,000 square meters of greenery surrounding seven tennis courts, as well as original palm groves and ancient stone walls. On this green plateau overlooking the Italian Riviera town of Alassio — and the Mediterranean Sea — is also a colonial-style club house that contains tennis artefacts worthy of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.
The clay courts at the Hanbury Tennis Club feature, in addition to antique post boxes, vintage police call boxes, all brought from the founder’s native England.
A photo of the clubhouse at the Hanbury, which is full of artefacts worthy of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.
Despite the British red phone boxes here and there, which add whit and whim, this is an Italian tennis club where 21st-century Italians pound the red clay. Fabio Fognini and his wife, WTA professional Flavia Pennetta, and family live just up the coast in Arma di Taggia, Italy, near San Remo. Those duking it out in the lower leagues of tennis, come to Hanbury every year to play at least two ITF tournaments, as well as several “torneo nazionales” for the Federazione Italiana Tennis. If guests get bored playing on the pristine clay or swimming in the sea, they can hang out in the pro shop, marvel at all the vintage tennis racquets and talk the days of Rene Lacoste, who helped inaugurate the club, as well as the club’s snub by the English writer DH Lawrence, who reportedly never took to the “rather snobbish atmosphere of expat colonialism and the genteel tea parties and tennis club gatherings” of the Hanbury. He eventually decamped for Spotorno, down the Ligurian coast.
The front door and entrance to the Hanbury Tennis Club. The door is festooned with yellow, “tennis-ball” handles.
The club almost reflects the changing of the area in which it is set. Until the late 19th century, the Italian Riviera consisted of mostly humble fishing villages, isolated by hills and the sea, but the construction of the coastal railway in 1872 connected London to Genoa, and Hanbury became an attractive stop for the English.Another was the competition. Hanbury persuaded “The Crocodile” Lacoste and his other three Musketeers to come from France to Italy and open the Alassio International tennis tournament, a combined men's and women's clay court tennis tournament founded in 1925. The tournament was staged until 1940 when World War II effectively ended it. In 1928, Australian team’s champions, including Jack Crawford and Harry Hopman, who had just won the Davis Cup, also came to play and drink gin at the Hanbury.
An antique case of statues, balls and other artifacts collected by Daniel Hanbury sits in the foyer of the club.
After his father died, Ruth Hanbury, the son of Daniel, took particular care of those tea-rooms and bridge-rooms that Lawrence evidently despised — and even added more English flavor. Ruth boasted of ties to the Duke of Wellington and Apsley House, and brought that regality to the Tennis Lodge, which has six bedrooms available from April to October. The Skordis family, owner of the club since 1977, has made many changes since then (called Villa Inglese since 1860) modernizing it in terms of services and accommodation.
Stairs leading to some of the guest rooms at the Hanbury Club. The Lodge has 16 rooms now run by the Joe Skordis clan, the British family that has owned the Hanbury since 1977.
There is one other Hanbury Tennis Club — in Wolverhampton, a small, industrial suburb of Birmingham. But that Hanbury — one clubhouse, and two artificial grass courts opened in 2000 by Ann Jones MBE, former Wimbledon champion — in no way competes with the Italian Hanbury.
The bar and dining room of the Hanbury Tennis Club in Alassio, Italy.
Another angle of the Hanbury Tennis Club bar and dining room, whose collection features items from every era in the history of tennis and totals in the millions of pounds.
Another of the many cases of mementos scattered throughout the club, some of it more valuable than others.
The pro shop of the Hanbury Tennis Club, which sells modern-day racquets and balls and clothing, despite the atmosphere. The official “Hanbury gear” however, sports a very traditional logo, with a crest of two lions holding up two tennis racquets.
More memorabilia collected by Daniel Hanbury and his son, Ruth, who boasted of lineage to the Duke of Wellington, during the club’s heyday.
An artificial turf mini court and hitting wall next to the clubhouse is the closest to an actual English tennis club as Hanbury guests come.
Rally: Celebrating Courts Around the World
The entrance of the Hanbury Tennis Club, featuring a Georgian-era postbox and a Black Taxi Cab.
Just beyond the train tracks of the regional rail to Genoa and around the small church on Via Michelangelo, lies the Hanbury Tennis Club — the perfect place for an English grass court player to fall in love with the dirt. Founded in 1923 by Daniel Hanbury, a young Brit who immigrated to Italy to build his own All-England Lawn Tennis Club, the Hanbury has 12,000 square meters of greenery surrounding seven tennis courts, as well as original palm groves and ancient stone walls. On this green plateau overlooking the Italian Riviera town of Alassio — and the Mediterranean Sea — is also a colonial-style club house that contains tennis artefacts worthy of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.
The clay courts at the Hanbury Tennis Club feature, in addition to antique post boxes, vintage police call boxes, all brought from the founder’s native England.
A photo of the clubhouse at the Hanbury, which is full of artefacts worthy of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.
Despite the British red phone boxes here and there, which add whit and whim, this is an Italian tennis club where 21st-century Italians pound the red clay. Fabio Fognini and his wife, WTA professional Flavia Pennetta, and family live just up the coast in Arma di Taggia, Italy, near San Remo. Those duking it out in the lower leagues of tennis, come to Hanbury every year to play at least two ITF tournaments, as well as several “torneo nazionales” for the Federazione Italiana Tennis. If guests get bored playing on the pristine clay or swimming in the sea, they can hang out in the pro shop, marvel at all the vintage tennis racquets and talk the days of Rene Lacoste, who helped inaugurate the club, as well as the club’s snub by the English writer DH Lawrence, who reportedly never took to the “rather snobbish atmosphere of expat colonialism and the genteel tea parties and tennis club gatherings” of the Hanbury. He eventually decamped for Spotorno, down the Ligurian coast.
The front door and entrance to the Hanbury Tennis Club. The door is festooned with yellow, “tennis-ball” handles.
The club almost reflects the changing of the area in which it is set. Until the late 19th century, the Italian Riviera consisted of mostly humble fishing villages, isolated by hills and the sea, but the construction of the coastal railway in 1872 connected London to Genoa, and Hanbury became an attractive stop for the English.Another was the competition. Hanbury persuaded “The Crocodile” Lacoste and his other three Musketeers to come from France to Italy and open the Alassio International tennis tournament, a combined men's and women's clay court tennis tournament founded in 1925. The tournament was staged until 1940 when World War II effectively ended it. In 1928, Australian team’s champions, including Jack Crawford and Harry Hopman, who had just won the Davis Cup, also came to play and drink gin at the Hanbury.
An antique case of statues, balls and other artifacts collected by Daniel Hanbury sits in the foyer of the club.
After his father died, Ruth Hanbury, the son of Daniel, took particular care of those tea-rooms and bridge-rooms that Lawrence evidently despised — and even added more English flavor. Ruth boasted of ties to the Duke of Wellington and Apsley House, and brought that regality to the Tennis Lodge, which has six bedrooms available from April to October. The Skordis family, owner of the club since 1977, has made many changes since then (called Villa Inglese since 1860) modernizing it in terms of services and accommodation.
Stairs leading to some of the guest rooms at the Hanbury Club. The Lodge has 16 rooms now run by the Joe Skordis clan, the British family that has owned the Hanbury since 1977.
There is one other Hanbury Tennis Club — in Wolverhampton, a small, industrial suburb of Birmingham. But that Hanbury — one clubhouse, and two artificial grass courts opened in 2000 by Ann Jones MBE, former Wimbledon champion — in no way competes with the Italian Hanbury.
The bar and dining room of the Hanbury Tennis Club in Alassio, Italy.
Another angle of the Hanbury Tennis Club bar and dining room, whose collection features items from every era in the history of tennis and totals in the millions of pounds.
Another of the many cases of mementos scattered throughout the club, some of it more valuable than others.
The pro shop of the Hanbury Tennis Club, which sells modern-day racquets and balls and clothing, despite the atmosphere. The official “Hanbury gear” however, sports a very traditional logo, with a crest of two lions holding up two tennis racquets.
More memorabilia collected by Daniel Hanbury and his son, Ruth, who boasted of lineage to the Duke of Wellington, during the club’s heyday.
An artificial turf mini court and hitting wall next to the clubhouse is the closest to an actual English tennis club as Hanbury guests come.
Adrian Brune
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