I Played Tennis With the Pros at This Bahamas Resort — and Left With Much More Than a Better Backhand

At the Rosewood Baha Mar, rookie tennis player Brittani Sonnenberg goes head-to-head with some of the sport’s greatest champions.

Boarding my flight to the Bahamas, I discreetly scanned the other passengers, trying to tell if anyone else was bound for a tennis tournament and lessons at Baha Mar. I registered a gaggle of already-tipsy girlfriends, a retired couple clutching hands tightly, and a foursome who looked athletic but held purses and backpacks, not rackets.

My stomach tightened. As a kid, I attended basketball or soccer camp in Atlanta every summer — an experience that left me keenly aware of my outsider status (my family lived in Singapore and China during the school year). Back then, I at least had my sister by my side. Now, a newly minted tennis journalist invited to cover a tournament at Baha Mar, I felt awkwardly alone. I was also newly married; this would be my first solo trip since moving in with Alejandro, a Venezuelan writer who shared my love of food, books, and travel. “Sometimes you have to relearn how to be by yourself,” my therapist had said when I confessed my qualms.

At summer camp in Atlanta, my sister and I would be met by a coach who would bark out our last names and assign us to a spartan dorm room. But at the Rosewood Baha Mar, a beaming receptionist greeted me like I was Serena Williams and handed me a perfectly balanced gin cocktail. When I stepped into my ocean-view room on the seventh floor, any residual unease melted into giddy joy. The décor was an ode to the island, from the cane-and-hemp chairs to the cloudlike bedding. Through the windows, I could see the hotel grounds, an explosion of palm trees, and the sea, which glittered an exquisite cerulean. I wasn’t just on a tennis trip, I realized.

I was on a honeymoon with myself.

At the tournament kickoff party that night I mingled with other participants, including Elissa Polls, an intermediate player like me, who had flown in from California. I also met Victoria, Jessica, and Andy — a group of slightly more advanced players. Slightly. Reader, I was hanging out with none other than top-ranked U.S. players Victoria Azarenka and Jessica Pegula, and the Andy Roddick. Elissa and I tried not to drop our Proseccos as Azarenka and Pegula began a fierce game of Ping-Pong and Marcus Samuelsson (the celebrity chef, who has a new restaurant at Baha Mar) gave James Blake (retired ATP champion and ESPN commentator) a high five.

Related: The 16 Best Tennis Bags of 2023

My trepidation had officially given way to euphoria. Dinner that night, at Café Boulud the Bahamas, began with tuna tataki — the first bite of which made me angry. How was I supposed to enjoy future dishes after sampling something so perfect? The flavors (delicate yellowfin, crispy cassava chips, and lime-splashed mango) darted around my taste buds like a fish on a coral reef. Then came the seafood risotto, a parsley-green bed of arborio rice with just the right amount of bite, on which nestled tender pieces of lobster, clam, calamari, and scallop.

As I walked to the tennis courts the next morning, however, reality set in again, and my hands started to shake. Pro-am tournaments pair professionals with amateurs for a series of short doubles games. I get nervous playing league matches in Austin; how on earth was I supposed to stare down Andy Roddick’s serve? Luckily, a clinic run by the staff of the Cliff Drysdale–led racquet club was packed with hotel guests who’d signed up for the tournament package. We mere mortals cheered each other on, and “Cliffy,” as the famous South African pro is nicknamed, offered each of us invaluable pointers. He offered a genius tip for my backhand, delivered with all the kindness of a svelte Santa Claus.

I first picked up a tennis racket four years ago, and became fully addicted during the pandemic. But I began trash-talking as soon as I was old enough to hold a basketball, thanks to my father, who played at Georgia Tech. At the Baha Mar tournament, I decided I would try and mask my terror with bluster. Stepping up to the baseline to serve, I hollered, “You’d better back up, Marcus,” to the famous chef. (I wound up serving the ball in the wrong box, nearly hitting James Blake, who joked that he was the one who should actually have backed up.)

A few matches later, after winning a point with a sharply hit volley, I told Pegula, in an act of deeply misguided bravado, to “just call me Coco” (Pegula’s indomitable doubles partner). She generously smiled instead of rolling her eyes.

Afterward, at the exhibition match, the pros played and taunted one another, to the crowd’s delight. When Mark Knowles called a ball out, Roddick yelled, “I saw how far you were holding the menu from your face last night. There’s no way you could see if that ball was in.” And when Pegula and Blake faced a young Bahamian team, the crowd cheered loudly for the next generation.

The weekend flew by, a delirious whirl of excellent food (Samuelsson’s Marcus at the Baha Mar Fish & Chop House was especially transcendent), cabana lounging, flamingo gawking, and rejuvenating deep-tissue massages. (The latter gave new meaning to Billie Jean King’s famous adage, “Pressure is a privilege.”)

My final morning, I walked through the Baha Mar Racquet Club’s pristine grounds, savoring the sight of tropical yellow blooms beside bright green courts, and waved at new friends I’d met at one of the club’s many tennis clinics. (Hotel guests can easily book courts, clinics, and private and group lessons through the racquet club.)

A few hours before my flight, Bahamian coach Kevaughn Ferguson offered two brilliant insights on my forehand that had balls zinging off my racket in a way that surely would have terrified Azarenka. Ah, well: there’s always next year.

“I’ve missed you,” Alejandro said when I called him in Miami. “I can’t wait to have you home.”

“I missed you, too,” I said. But as we hung up, I sensed that something had shifted. Just as I had learned to love overhead smashes on the tennis court after fearing them for the first few months, I had a new sense of relishing solo adventures, whether at home or abroad. It didn’t hurt that Blake, sitting in first class with his family, gave me a friendly nod as I headed back to my seat in the main cabin. You know, player to player.

Held each December, the Baha Mar Cup raises funds for a local children’s tennis charity. The Stay and Play Pro-Am package, which includes two nights at the Rosewood, entry into the Pro-Am tournament, four VIP tickets to exhibition matches, two hours of clinics, and more, is $8,000. Bespoke tennis vacations can also be scheduled throughout the year with the racquet club, which offers private lessons and group clinics.

For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.