Nail it like Nadal: the ultimate tennis holiday — coached by Rafa’s mentor

I’m at Wimbledon when I get the message. Would I like to go to the luxury Sani Resort in Greece to be coached by Toni Nadal? Known to the world as “Uncle Toni”, this is the man who helped his nephew (and my sporting hero) to the first 16 of his 22 Grand Slam titles so far.

Is this an elaborate wind-up cooked up by one of my Federer-loving friends? Or a hallucination brought on by the heady atmosphere of the All England Club? Surely I can’t have consumed that much Pimm’s?

But five days later, there I am under the sweltering Hellenic sun being urged on in husky Spanish-accented tones: “Slow down”; “Remember to follow through”; and then that famous Nadal mantra — “¡Vamos!”

Why I’m here at Sani Resort’s Rafa Nadal Tennis Centre is clear enough but what on Earth is Toni doing here on the middle weekend of Wimbledon? Shouldn’t he be there coaching his current protégé, the rising Canadian talent Félix Auger-Aliassime, or sitting in the Nadal player’s box rather than working on my groundstrokes?

To do things well you have to focus and memorise. What did they tell me? What do I need to do?

When I sit down with Toni, 61, courtside, I put this question to him. The answer, it turns out, lies in a simple clerical error: he hadn’t checked the Wimbledon dates when he agreed to come here for a five-day coaching visit, a trip he typically makes once per summer. As it turns out, Auger-Aliassime has already been knocked out of Wimbledon so the point is moot, but Toni’s straightforward and unguarded answer says much about the man.

Plain-speaking and unfussy, he has no time for nonsense in coaching or in life — qualities that have manifestly been passed on to Rafa. “Conceptually, my method of teaching has always been very simple,” he says. “When I coached my nephew it was always with questions: how can we improve this shot or do this or that better? I don’t like complication.”

Above all, he emphasises the importance of rhythm, timing and pausing to consider and reflect on what you have been taught. “To do things well you have to focus and memorise. What did they tell me? What do I need to do? If you come here for a week and then go home and do what you did before, it’s because you haven’t thought about what you were taught.”

His semi-regular column for El País is not short on strong opinions and on paper Uncle Toni may sound gruff, but in person he is jovial and warm — gently ribbing us amateurs, giving encouraging slaps on the back. Born, like the rest of the Nadal family, in Manacor in Mallorca, he was a regional table tennis champion before becoming a coach and manager of the local tennis club, where he introduced his nephew to the game at the age of four. It is said he steered the otherwise right-handed Rafa to play the game left-handed — a decision that has worked out rather well.

The idea of travelling to play tennis might seem strange — a court is essentially the same wherever it is — but in recent years a growing number of tennis camps have sprung up in far-flung sunny spots, promising an intensive series of lessons to turbocharge your game. I’ve previously tried tennis holidays with Neilson Active, which runs trips to resorts in Greece, Italy and Croatia, but a camp led by the former coach of one of the game’s era-defining players is clearly something else — and a kind of pilgrimage for a Nadal fan. A vitrine in the clubhouse here contains a full-sized replica of the French Open’s Coupe des Mousquetaires, awarded to Rafa for his 10th win in 2017. (He has won another four since).

In 2016, the champion opened an eponymous academy in his Mallorcan home town, headed up by Uncle Toni. It has since produced pros such as the young Norwegian Casper Ruud, runner-up of last month’s French Open (he lost to Rafa, naturally). But the academy also offers courses for visiting amateurs and it has now branched out with four satellite centres; as well as Sani, which opened in 2019, there are others in Mexico, Kuwait and Hong Kong.

Stepping out on the court for the first time it’s clear that the coaches here mean business. After a brief warm-up, it’s straight into Spanish-style drills, which means an emphasis on quick footwork — side to side, backwards-forwards, diagonals, criss-cross. “I can see that you are already in perfect shape,” Toni quips as he catches me lagging behind.

It’s only 10am but already punishingly hot and humid. As fatigue sets in, it becomes harder to hit clean shots as I arrive late to the ball. But I know from past experience that this kind of effort pays dividends. That famous Nadal footwork didn’t come about without thousands of hours of similar workouts. Like him, I find myself returning compulsively to my towel between points and am fixated on my water bottle during every break. Sadly, the similarity ends there. But, as Toni puts it: “Never was a match won by complaining.”

Between correcting my group’s errant shots, faltering movement and offbeat timing, he takes a phone call. Reappearing, he tells us it was Rafa, who is playing Wimbledon for the first time since 2019 and is preparing for his third-round match later that day.

Toni is unimpressed with his form so far. “Until now he hasn’t played well, but that’s normal. He needs matches. If Rafael can win three matches in a row, everything changes. He runs better, he hits better, more decisively. That’s when he starts to become dangerous.” So what did Toni advise? “I told him he needs to be more aggressive. He said: ‘Of course, I know it.’” That evening, a rampant Rafa demolishes his opponent with the loss of only seven games.

Sani itself started out in 1971 as a single, family-owned hotel built on land bought from the Monastery of Savronikita on nearby Mount Athos. Since then it has steadily grown to become a cluster of five smart hotels and nearly 30 restaurants, set between white sand beaches and pine forests on the verdant Kassandra Peninsula, 70km south of Thessaloniki. It is luxurious without being ostentatious and is run with slick efficiency. Junior staff stand to attention like ball boys and ball girls, managers carry the calm assurance of experienced umpires.

The tennis centre boasts eight immaculate clay courts and a clubhouse; the coaches have all received training at the Mallorca mother ship. “We do the preparation there and then we send coaches here for a couple of months at a time,” says Toni. “In that way we impart the same methodology as we use in Mallorca.”

What that means — in line with the zealous Nadal ethos — is an emphasis on learning and improving, not just idly passing the time between meals and poolside vegetation. You won’t find “booze ‘n’ balls” evenings (the drinking games mixed with tennis drills popular at some other camps). This is a place where the motivated player can really push themselves, though that’s not to say the standard is intimidatingly high: I see family sessions and lessons being given to those who can hardly hit a ball.

And it’s not just tennis. As well as beaches and watersports, there’s a Chelsea FC Football Academy, a Bear Grylls Survival Academy and the Sani Festival, which this year boasts Bob Geldof and Andrea Bocelli (mercifully not in duet).

On my second morning, I have a private tennis lesson with a dynamic young Spanish coach who drills my backhand for a solid hour, getting me to relax my wrist and drive up from my legs to maximise topspin.

Afterwards, I run into Toni again. He is more satisfied with Rafa’s exertions the evening before but scathing about the efforts of local favourite Stefanos Tsitsipas, who has fallen to the Australian Nick Kyrgios in a spectacularly bad-tempered encounter. I ask him whether he thinks Rafa was always destined for success or whether there was a special alchemy in their relationship.

“Rafael would have been great with any coach,” he says. “The only thing I have is that I always say what I think. If someone is behaving stupidly, I will tell them.” And in his El País column the following day, he tells it straight: “It is true that Kyrgios is annoying and provocative. But Tsitsipas acted to his own detriment, lacking the ability to control his emotions and nerves.”

Now it’s my turn. The weekend culminates in a tournament where I do battle with an international cast of tennis nuts, among them a cool Borg-like Swede and a surly Murray-ish Scot. Using my newly upgraded skills I make it through a couple of rounds but am finally undone by a Russian called Leonid who has an impenetrable defensive game. I mentally nickname him “Brezhnev”. He has the eyebrows to match but I doubt the Soviet leader had such a reliable backhand.

Afterwards, it is Toni who hands out the prizes, signing autographs and posing for photos with the same grace and patience as his superstar nephew. I’m broadly satisfied with my progress after just two days here and have diligently memorised what I need to work on when I get home. But as I approach Toni for one last time, I brace myself for some honest feedback.

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