It has been a glorious autumn in Paris this year. The city was glowing in the autumn sunshine and my roof garden was still in full bloom so naturally my thoughts turned to tennis. I had also strolled up the boulevard to République to treat myself to some new sports gear from Go Sport so I was keen to get out there and try another court.
I think I may need to start booking ahead if I want to get a game in the swanky surroundings of the Luxembourg Gardens, but there is a lot to be said for playing closer to home - I'm used to being able to walk to my tennis sessions, in fact I consider the walk part of the warm-up so I'm ready to play as soon as I arrive.
Not far from Bastille, just off the bustling Rue du Faubourg St Antoine, Tennis Candie dominates the road from which it takes its name. It is an ugly 1970s carbuncle of a sports centre. As we arrived hordes of French schoolchildren were pouring out of the door after a sports lesson on the indoor basketball courts housed in a subterranean sports hall on the same site. We were playing at 10am so we got in for the bargain price of €4.50 instead of the €7.50 we paid previously. This time I had my passport to hand and swanned straight through passport control towards the courts at the back.
First impressions were not great - the entrance resembled nothing so much as the exercise yard at Alcatraz - a grim, concrete enclosure marked out with a few sad running lanes - hardly designed to lift the heart and unlikely to persuade anyone to take up athletics. Undaunted we pressed on up a concrete staircase and out on to court 1 which is surrounded by modern apartment blocks. Hitchcock could have filmed his movie Rear Window here. We could see a tailor busily at work in his atelier and residents could also watch us as they leaned out of the windows to smoke a crafty cigarette - guaranteed to put me off my stroke (any excuse).
The court itself was impossible to fault - immaculately maintained and with a close-cut astroturf surface which always makes me think I am playing in a greengrocer's shop window. There was also a brand new net, set to the correct height (I checked with my Queen's Club chain). There is a second court up a staircase on the other side of the changing rooms so you feel as though you have the place to yourself whichever court you play on. Our only visitor was a ginger cat who stalked the perimeter fence as we played.
There were showers and changing rooms for each court - following the Alcatraz theme so not luxurious - but certainly more than you'd get at most municipal courts in Britain and they served the purpose for my husband who needed to dash straight off to work after his game while I strolled to Bastille for a coffee and then home.
11 Rue de Candie, 75011, Paris
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