Close To Home : Hot Tennis and Haute Cuisine Near San Diego

“No swing. No swing. Just bounce it off your strings. That’s right. No, take it easy. Watch the seam of the ball. Watch it. Watch which way the wind is blowing. Make sure you don’t get hit by the ball. That’s right. Move into position. Watch which way it’s going. You were lucky that time. Watch the ball. Watch the ball. . . .”

This is Samuel Nunez talking, and if you don’t know Boris from Martina or an ace from a deuce, his words probably won’t mean much to you. If, on the other hand, you happen to be addicted to the game of tennis, and are desirous of improving your own performance of it, then Nunez’s patter--which accompanies a portion of the daily intensive tennis clinics he conducts--will sound like music to your ears.

Nunez is the senior tennis pro at Rancho Valencia, a two-year-old resort hotel in the hills about 20 miles north of San Diego near the village of Rancho Santa Fe, and sister property to the historic La Valencia Hotel in nearby La Jolla. Rancho Valencia is attractively modest in scale, with no more than 43 accommodations, all of them spacious suites (and all of them with large private patios), scattered around 40 acres of gently rolling landscape in a collection of romantic little casitas.

The architectural style is that superbly inoffensive, California pseudo-rancho look--adobe-style walls in something between peach and sandalwood, vast expanses of cool saltillo tiles, tile roofs--which, even in pastiche, is invariably handsome and inviting.

With its vast expanses of open, rolling hills, this corner of booming San Diego County--including the adjacent communities of Rancho Santa Fe and Fairbanks Ranch--has recently been “discovered.” The bluffs visible in the distance are quickly filling up with huge new estates, and new and intended residents include such notables as Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, former National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle and singer Janet Jackson, who has moved into a multimillion-dollar home here.

Indeed, despite its youth, Rancho Valencia has already attracted guests from all over the United States, Canada and Japan, and has welcomed such celebrities as Merv Griffin (who is a partner in the resort), actor Robert Loggia and Vice President Dan Quayle. It was even featured in the 1990 Neiman Marcus Christmas Book--the store’s famous annual holiday catalogue that was partially photographed at Rancho Valencia, and which offers tennis-oriented stays here among its gift suggestions.

The grounds at the resort, though manifestly young in verdure, are already lush with lawns and flowers, with bougainvillea and hibiscus bushes, with citrus trees and palms. The surrounding hills are wooded, and the mountains in the distance ghostly blue. The air is warm and lightly breezy, and nearly always slightly hazy--which diffuses the light beautifully. Birds chirrup from dawn to dusk, and butterflies are apt to flutter past spontaneously, like pleasant memories.

If you’re a tennis addict, of course, it will be not the flora and fauna that most excite your interest here, but rather the large, well-run tennis complex--there are 18 courts--which are under the aegis of tennis resort developer John Gardiner.

Gardiner, the former Pebble Beach tennis pro who went on to build an empire of tennis resorts and related facilities around the United States, has created a highly efficient, comprehensive program of tennis drills and teaching philosophies, well known and respected all over America.

The standard tennis clinic program at Rancho Valencia runs four days and five nights, from Sunday evening through Friday morning. A two-day-long “Weekend Tie Breaker” program is also offered, though guests can sign up, too, for a single day, or even a single afternoon of clinic sessions. The typical complete weekday schedule goes like this:

7 a.m.: Freshly squeezed orange juice and a morning paper delivered to your casita.

7-9 a.m.: Breakfast.

9:15-9:30 a.m.: Limbering and stretching exercises.

9:30-11 a.m.: Tennis clinic, featuring practice on stroke technique.

11-11:15 a.m.: Refreshment break (fresh fruit and juices).

11:15 a.m.-noon: Clinic, featuring stroke production.

Noon-1 p.m.: Practice in the “cage” with ball machine.

1-2:15 p.m.: Lunch.

2:15-2:30 p.m.: Limbering and stretching exercises.

2:30-3 p.m.: Special lessons (ground strokes, volleys or serves).

3-4:30 p.m.: Clinic, featuring tactics and strategy; also, chance to play against fellow students.

4:30 p.m.: Massage.

6-10 p.m.: Cocktails and dinner.

Famed Australian tennis star Ken Rosewall comes to Rancho Valencia once or twice a year for about a month at a time, conducting clinics and offering private lessons. The rest of the time, Samuel Nunez--”Sam I am,” he likes to say--heads up the resort’s staff of teaching pros.

Nunez, who hails from Mexico City and looks a bit like a Latin movie idol of the ‘40s or ‘50s, is a wonderful teacher, combining solid tennis technique with common-sense advice. (How many other tennis pros tell their students to watch which way the wind blows?)

A lesson with him is a lesson not just in strokes and strategies, but in the philosophy and psychology of tennis.

“You’ve got three enemies out there on the court,” he tells his students, for instance. “The first one is dehydration. That’s why I want you to stop after the first half-hour of the lesson and drink a full glass of water, even if you’re not that thirsty. By the time you feel the thirst, you’ve already lost 8% of your body liquid.

“Your second enemy is the net. It’s better to hit the ball out than into the net. At least that means that you followed through with your stroke--and, besides, then the other guy has to pick up the ball. Your third and greatest enemy is your head--the part that keeps saying, ‘How could I do that? That was a stupid shot. I’m no good. I shouldn’t be out here.’ That kind of attitude will beat you faster than anything. . . .”

Despite its strong tennis focus, it should be stressed that Rancho Valencia welcomes non-tennis players, and offers them lots to do. To begin with, there is a full-length swimming pool with two Jacuzzis and a sauna. Bike rentals are available at the resort, and there are jogging trails nearby. Four first-rate golf courses are within minutes of the place, and the Rancho Valencia concierge is adept at securing tee times.

There is free transportation to the beach at Del Mar a few miles away. Scenic hot-air balloon rides can be arranged, and even if you don’t take one, you can enjoy these buoyant, brightly hued conveyances at a distance as they drift across the horizon every afternoon at twilight.

There’s even the chance to enjoy a far older and, some would say, nobler sport than tennis --horse racing, as practiced from July through mid-September at the nearby Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, one of California’s top tracks.

And then there’s the food served at the resort’s La Tapenade Restaurant, both outdoors in a hacienda-style patio around a splashing fountain and indoors in a sort of starchy-rustic dining room. (Tapenade is a Provencal olive-and-caper puree, offered here on toast rounds as a complimentary appetizer.)

The man in charge of the Rancho Valencia kitchen is Claude Segal, well known to L.A. restaurant-goers.

When Wolfgang Puck left Ma Maison to open his now-legendary Spago, it was Segal who was imported from Paris (where he was cooking at the one-star La Ciboulette) to take his place. Later, Segal moved on to Bistango, Wave, the Four Oaks Restaurant and MaBe, the latter with which he still maintains a consulting relationship.

But Segal prefers the relative quiet of Rancho Valencia, he says, and loves the fact that he is practically next door to the legendary Chino Ranch, which grows some of the best specialty produce in California, and where even Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters (of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse) come to shop.

“I would like to develop something like Guerard here,” he says, referring to chef Michel Guerard’s three-star restaurant-cum-spa in southwestern France, “where people could come and spend a week having very healthy food, but at the same time food that tastes like food.”

His French-accented Californian menu offers just that. Arranged in two parts--contemporary and traditional--it includes such delights as Scottish smoked salmon with cucumber and Maui onion salad, homemade pappardelle noodles with pear tomatoes and fresh herbs, and grilled marinated chicken with double-blanched garlic (traditional) and lasagna filled with caramelized Chino Ranch organic carrots and onions, John Dory wrapped in crispy scallions with lobster sauce and mosaic of venison with wild currant and cabernet sauce and onion ravioli (contemporary)--all of it fresh, honest and delicious.

And in case you think that good food like this is somehow antithetical to the spirit of daily tennis workouts, it should be pointed out that top-notch dining rooms are associated with all of John Gardiner’s tennis clinics, and that chef Segal himself can be seen on the Rancho Valencia courts nearly every morning, moving into position, watching the ball.

GUIDEBOOK: Rancho Valencia

Getting in touch: Mailing address--P.O. Box 9126, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. 92067, telephone (619) 756-1123. Reservations--(800) 548-3664.

Getting there: From Los Angeles, take Interstate 5 south to Del Mar, go east on Via de la Valle, south on El Camino Real, then east again on San Dieguito Road. Turn south on Rancho Diegueno Road and make an immediate left on Rancho Valencia Road.

Terms/rates: Tennis clinic weeks (six days and five nights), $1,525-$1,800 per person, double occupancy; weekend tie breakers (three days and two nights), $650-$800 per person, double occupancy. Regular daily rates, including breakfast and complimentary use of tennis courts, $295-$600 for two. A two-day, one-night romantic getaway package, including dinner in La Tapenade, massages, breakfast in bed and extended checkout is $500 per couple. The original Rancho Valencia hacienda, including three suites and a private pool, is available from $1,800 a day.