With grass court season finally underway, tennis fans from across the globe have descended on England to watch some of the finest tournaments in the lead-up to Wimbledon. This year, Stoke Park opened their doors once again to The Boodles Tennis after postponing the 2022 edition due to a lengthy and comprehensive revamp.
The 300-acre estate in the Buckinghamshire countryside, now owned by Reliance Industries Limited, rolled out the red carpet for some of our favourite stars. In partnership with HELLO! and HFM, the likes of Penny Lancaster, Charlotte Hawkins and James and Ola Jordan brought some glamour to the week's proceedings.
"The setting is so intimate. It is the perfect pre-Wimbledon tournament," says Penny, who once modelled tennis whites for an ad campaign alongside Tim Henman and has a tennis court at the home she shares with Rod Stewart and their two sporty children.
"We've loved it, we've absolutely had the best day," James tells us, while Ola adds: "It was a nice day away from parenting duties."
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Over the years, tennis greats from Novak Djokovic, Maria Sharapova, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal have graced the courts of Stoke Park. And this year, tennis fans got to see the likes of Borna Coric and Sebastian Korda and Felix Auger-Aliassime as well as Andrey Rublev take to the courts.
The players continued to deliver a high performance against their elite counterparts in the warm-up to Wimbledon, where each of them vies for a Grand Slam win. Sebastian, who played at Boodles for the first time in 2017 when he was a 17-year-old, confessed he was happy to be back as a "professional".
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He says: "It's fun being back as a professional, as a star of tennis. I'm now pretty comfortable on any surface. I just have to play big aggressive games and whenever it's a fast service, I think it's really fast."
Borna, 26, adds: "I was very happy with my performance here. It was awesome. I last played here in 2017, but obviously, many things have changed here."
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Asked what's it like to be a rising star in the tennis world, the Croatian player humbly states: "I think we are all very hard workers. We all try to do our best on the tennis court that fans would enjoy. I play with my heart, but at the same time, every game there is always something new, it's always something different."
Other stars who watched the future champions of tennis in action included Kirsty Gallacher and Chemmy Alcott as well as Strictly Come Dancing professionals Kai Widdrington, Nadiya Bychkova, Vito Coppola and Nikita Kuzmin.
During the intimate and wonderfully relaxed outing, the guests happily eyed up some of the beautiful jewels that were being previewed at the on-site Boodles Gallery while sipping on chilled glasses of Champagne and Pimms. This was then followed by a sumptuous gourmet three-course lunch, prepared by award-winning chef Chris Wheeler.
Throughout the afternoon, the star-studded attendees took in the on-court atmosphere from their private courtside box where they had the opportunity to relax while watching the world's finest tennis players.
"It's been a lovely day, although Ola slightly enjoyed it more than me because I am driving," James told us at the end of the day. "She's been drinking champagne all day with all the girls and we've been told off several times because we're the naughty box."
Although dancing is most likely in their three-year-old daughter Ella's genes, James and Ola wouldn't mind if she takes up tennis instead. "Ella's quite sporty although she's into football at the moment," James adds. "If there's going to be any sport, it has to be golf because I love golf as well. But if she got into tennis I would be quite happy."