The 12 Most Scenic Tennis Courts Around the World

A regulation tennis court has been 2,808 square feet since Major Walter Clopton Wingfield patented lawn tennis in 1874, but the landscape surrounding those 2,808 square feet has never been worth more to the hospitality industry than it is right now. Golf dominated resort programming for a century because it consumed acreage and signaled wealth, but the economics have flipped: a single tennis court occupies a fraction of one fairway, generates comparable revenue per square foot and—thanks to padel, the glass-walled doubles format that has quadrupled its global player base to over 35 million since 2018 and now counts 77,000 courts across 150 countries—can be stacked, lit and programmed into a social venue that guests actually use instead of guiltily ignoring for the pool. 

When Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers grossed $96 million and turned Zendaya in a tennis skirt into the defining fashion image of 2024, the last cultural barrier fell: the court stopped being an amenity and became the destination. U.S. tennis participation has since surged 54 percent to 27.3 million players, coaching academies run by Grand Slam champions now anchor entire resort identities, and the facilities going up in 2025 and 2026 are not the neglected hard courts behind the spa that most travelers remember from childhood.

The question, then, is where. The best hotel tennis courts make the same implicit promise: that the setting will be so distractingly beautiful you will forgive yourself for losing. What follows are 12 courts—on cliffs, across private islands, above seas named by Homer—where the scenery reliably wins that competition.

The Most Beautiful Tennis Courts in the World

• Mandarin Oriental, Costa Navarino, Messinia, Greece
• II San Pietro di Positano, Amalfi Coast, Italy
• Monte-Carlo Country Club, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France
• Cromlix Hotel, Perthshire, Scotland
• Gstaad Palace, Gstaad, Switzerland
• Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d’Antibes, France
• Necker Island, British Virgin Islands
• Enchantment Resort, Sedona, Arizona
• The Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida
• Montauk Yacht Club, Montauk, New York
• Cheval Blanc Randheli, Noonu Atoll, Maldives

Mandarin Oriental, Costa Navarino, Messinia, Greece

• Navarino Bay, Costa Navarino, 24001 Pylos, Messenia, Greece

In Homer’s Odyssey, Telemachus sailed to this coast 3,000 years ago looking for his father and found Greeks sacrificing bulls to Poseidon on the beach. Since then, hospitality has only improved. The Mouratoglou Tennis Center occupies nearly five acres above the Ionian Sea with 12 Grand Slam-standard courts—eight clay, four hard—coached by the system Patrick Mouratoglou developed for Serena Williams, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Coco Gauff, plus three panoramic padel courts on the periphery. The Palace of Nestor, a Mycenaean complex dating to 1300 B.C., sits 25 minutes away by car. Christopher Nolan shot his $250 million Odyssey across this landscape in spring 2025, filming the Cyclops sequences at Nestor’s Cave. Costa Navarino now runs Odyssey trails past the locations for guests who prefer their match play with a side of mythology.

II San Pietro di Positano, Amalfi Coast, Italy

• Via Laurito 2, 84017 Positano SA, Italy

Most hotels put their tennis court by the pool. Il San Pietro carved theirs 288 feet below the lobby, at the bottom of an elevator bored through solid limestone. It’s rather dramatic, with a single clay court that hangs over the Tyrrhenian Sea, Positano glowing across the bay, and bougainvillea spilling down the rock face above. Carlino Cinque founded the hotel in 1970 after scouting the cliff from a rowing boat—he saw a sheer rock face and decided to build into it, serving as his own architect, engineer and site supervisor because no one else would—and three generations of his family have run it since.

Monte-Carlo Country Club, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France

• 155 Avenue Princesse Grace, 06190 Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France

Despite the moniker, the Monte-Carlo Country Club is not technically in Monte Carlo. It sits about 500 feet outside Monaco’s northeastern border in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, a jurisdictional detail that matters to no one standing on its 21 clay courts watching superyachts idle in the harbor below. Nadal won 11 titles here, eight of them consecutive, on terraces cut into the hillside where every changeover comes with an involuntary glance at the Mediterranean. The Letrosne-designed clubhouse opened in 1928, and the dress code has not relaxed since—tennis whites required, clay shoes only.

Cromlix Hotel, Perthshire, Scotland

• Kinbuck, Dunblane FK15 9JT, Scotland

Andy Murray bought this 34-acre Victorian estate in 2013 (the year he won his first Wimbledon championship) and promptly converted it into a 15-room hotel. The court sits in a woodland clearing, and the umpire’s chair is salvaged from a Murray vs. Federer match. Coaching is available. The Perthshire countryside creates a moody, low-cloud atmosphere, and with only 15 rooms at the hotel, the court is seldom crowded.

Gstaad Palace, Gstaad, Switzerland

• Palacestrasse 28, 3780 Gstaad, Switzerland

Four red clay courts sit at about 3,000 feet in the Bernese Oberland, with wildflower meadows stretching to the tree line, snow-streaked peaks stacking up behind them and a turreted hotel overhead that looks like it was illustrated rather than constructed. The scenery alone would justify inclusion, but the reason to actually go is Roy Emerson. The Australian won 12 Grand Slam singles titles and has run his celebrated Tennis Weeks at the Palace since 1973—five hours of on-court coaching a day, groups of three or four, with the man himself still directing play into his 90s.

Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d’Antibes, France

• Boulevard J.F. Kennedy, 06160 Cap d’Antibes, France

Slim Aarons made his name photographing wealth at leisure, and the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc was where he snapped some of his best photos—his images of the pool and grounds became so iconic that the hotel’s visual identity is essentially borrowed from his archive. Fitzgerald stayed long enough to turn the place into Tender Is the Night. Roger Moore played the five red clay courts beneath the Aleppo pines daily when he was in town; Connery preferred to drop in unannounced. The courts are beautiful, perched at the tip of Cap d’Antibes with nothing between you and the sea, but they have never really been just about tennis. Each May during Cannes, the amfAR gala lays tablecloths directly on the clay and seats 1,000 for dinner, an event that has been happening for over two decades.

Necker Island, British Virgin Islands

• Necker Island, British Virgin Islands

Richard Branson’s 74-acre private island has ring-tailed lemurs, giant Aldabra tortoises, a flamingo population and two floodlit courts at beach level where the Caribbean serves as the only fence. The full buyout is about $102,500 per day for up to 48 guests, with a staff of 100 who comfortably outnumber you. The annual Necker Cup pro-am has drawn Andy Roddick and James Blake, and costs $50,000 to enter, though individual rooms open during Celebration Weeks at about $5,150 a night for a more modest commitment. The tortoises predate the sport by several centuries and remain thoroughly unimpressed by everyone’s backhand, which is humbling in a way that money cannot buy, but apparently can rent.

Enchantment Resort, Sedona, Arizona

• 525 Boynton Canyon Rd, Sedona, AZ 86336

Boynton Canyon’s 400-foot sandstone walls have been here for 300 million years, and playing tennis at their base does something to your sense of proportion that no amount of private coaching will replicate. The panorama cycles through vermillion, violet and near-black as the sun drops, turning evening sessions under the LEDs into something closer to ceremony than cardio. Six hard courts and six pickleball courts, access included with the room. Enchantment also runs Mii Amo, a top destination spa in the U.S., which is useful when the canyon has outplayed you by the second set and your ego needs a steam room more than a tiebreak.

The Breakers, Palm Beach, Florida

• 1 South County Road, Palm Beach, FL 33480

In 2024, The Breakers completed a $12 million renovation anchored by the world’s first hydroponic grass courts—CapillaryFlow turf grown without soil, irrigated from below, saving 85 percent more water than traditional grass and producing a surface that plays like Wimbledon relocated to the subtropics. The full complex spans 104,000 square feet, with 16 courts across four surfaces, two padel courts and an elevated viewing lounge called The Veranda, where watching other people sweat counts as a legitimate leisure activity. Tihany Design built the whole thing in white, dark green and jasmine pergolas that feel like Old Florida, given a very generous budget.

Montauk Yacht Club, Montauk, New York

• 32 Star Island Road, Montauk, NY 11954

The Montauk Yacht Club goes back to 1928, with founding members including Vincent Astor, J.P. Morgan, Edsel Ford and Harold Vanderbilt. Charles Lindbergh once parked his seaplane at the dock. The location remains the same, but the recreational offerings have since evolved. “The Courts” opened April 2 on a 16-acre peninsula in Lake Montauk with tennis, the Hamptons’ first padel facility and pickleball, alongside courtside spritzes and coastal Italian from Alba Spiaggia, a Prince Street Hospitality collaboration that brings downtown Manhattan dining to the far end of Long Island. Privé Padel built the glass-walled courts, and co-founder Nicholas Solarewicz, a former pro, runs the program. The setting closes the deal: water on three sides, a 228-slip marina full of sailboats and a 1928 replica lighthouse on the skyline.

Cheval Blanc Randheli, Noonu Atoll, Maldives

• Noonu Atoll, Maldives

Maakurandhoo, one of five islands in this 46-villa Cheval Blanc property, is used exclusively to house two Grand Slam-standard courts cleared in the interior and a beach you will have to yourself between sets. Jim Courier, the former world No. 1 who won four majors in the early nineties before becoming one of the sport’s best-known broadcasters, designed the coaching methodology while staffing the program with former ATP professionals. The resort counts Roger Federer and his wife Mirka as repeat guests, which, if you know anything about how the most traveled man in tennis chooses where to rest, is the only endorsement the courts need.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​