In Azay-le-Rideau (Indre-et-Loire), a colossal white dome has emerged in the heart of a business park surrounded by fields, orchards and vineyards. This inflatable structure of 3,500 m2 covers four hard tennis courts, meeting the standards for hosting international tournaments, of the “SkinUp Academy”, the first private tennis structure in Indre-et-Loire. Led by Sophie Duguet, creator of the sports textile company SkinUp and tennis educator Laurence Bois, this project was inaugurated in December 2022, after two short years of preparation.
“At the time of confinement, I started thinking about repositioning the offer of the SkinUp brand, which I had created twenty years ago. The idea was to move from the slimming market to that of sports textiles,” says Sophie Duguet, designing this academy as a place of innovation and a space for selling the brand’s products, grafted onto a tennis performance and training center. His goal is to attract high-level players to test the connected textiles developed by his company.
Supported by former professional tennis player Thierry Tulasne, she has invested 3 million euros in this project, winner of a France Relance call for projects. The SkinUp Academy already houses an ambitious club, including an excellent training center and a school sports section. “The academy remains accessible to all levels and to the disabled.sport »,assures Laurence Bois. ” We would like to organize an international wheelchair tennis tournament. This is one of our short-term goals. » In addition, the construction of this state-of-the-art structure, with a technological wall, a video analysis system and even a dedicated medical team, fills a gap in public infrastructure within a radius of 20 km. Saturated with requests, some clubs have relocated part of their training there.
A “sports resort” to attract tourists
The third leg of the economic model is based on the running of a “business club”, which already brings together some fifty local companies wishing to promote sport within their teams and to facilitate professional meetings around the practice of sport. The creators of the academy do not forget to bet on tourism either. “We are in Azay-le-Rideau, which receives 400,000 visitors from all over the world every year, and there is no real sports offer. With the Olympic Games, we are going to offer tourists who pass by here the opportunity to play sports, ” explains Sophie Duguet, convinced that “the sports and cultural offerings are perfectly compatible”.
The second part of the work, which consists of fitting out the exteriors, building three clay tennis courts, four padel courts and a multi-sports ground, should be completed before the summer, while a third and final phase of this company could include a high-end hosting offer, ” a kind of sports resort” in this area of 2 hectares. Once profitability has been achieved, the question will arise of replicating the franchise in France or abroad.
An original model in French tennis
The appearance of this new structure breaks with French tradition. Until now, unlike the countries of northern Europe, Anglo-Saxon or South American, the tennis authorities had favored a predominantly public, federal and associative organization. A pioneer in France, the former professional tennis player Patrick Mouratoglou founded a first academy in Thiverval-Grignon (Yvelines) in 1996 before developing, in 2016, 12 hectares of cutting-edge sports infrastructure in Sophia Antipolis (Alpes-Maritimes). Others, like Charles Auffray in Cap-d’Agde, tried their luck with varying degrees of success.
For Yohan Penel, the president of the French Badminton Federation, “the future of high-level sportis undoubtedly doomed to pass – entirely – under the control of the private sector”. The tricolor tennis model, which is struggling to emerge from champions able to compete with the top 10 in the world, will probably not escape this revolution.
