It has been a wonderful summer for tennis this year & I have been fortunate enough to have enjoyed attending two of Britain’s premier venues for the sport over the last couple of months.

Firstly, there was my kind invitation to The Boodles, aka the Wimbledon warm up for the likes of Novak Djokovic & Rafael Nadal. Lavishly revelling in his 14th year, this is a quintessentially English day out and some top tennis thrown in.

The venue is Stoke Park,  a AA Five Red Star Hotel which is the highest accolade given to hotels by the renowned guide series. Five red stars are awarded for outstanding facilities, service and all-round customer experience. The Park has a busy social events calendar and it’s an Instagrammer’s dream! It’s not difficult to see why this place deserved the award. It is simply stunning, and the perfect backdrop for this tennis spectacular.

As Djokovic arrived in style and the Jewels to be admired in The Boodles top security VIP lounge sparkled in the glorious British sunshine, we knew we were in for a treat.

A sumptuous 3-course lunch was washed down with endless Pimms & Veuve Clicquot as we took our seats for some fabulous tennis from rising stars & established champions. The sound of crisp fresh tennis balls shuttling back & forth was punctuated by the regular pop of champagne corks, refreshing the enthusiastic crowd.

On the last day, we were treated to a fabulous show from the dashing & talented Goran Ivanisevic who dazzled us with a display of fun & forehands as he and his counterpart, Cedric Pioline made us laugh & gasp with their entertaining display.

In between matches, we meandered around the alfresco shopping available, mingling with the Made In Chelsea set & various other well-known faces.

We were shown some truly eye-watering diamond creations, this being my favourite at a cool £42K! I mistakenly deleted my snap of the jaw-dropping moment I actually got to wear this (briefly!) on my finger! Typical! Maybe next year, I will blog the diamonds for Boodles, who knows?!

The Boodles is definitely a date in the social calendar I have marked off for 2016, although it’s selling out fast so I’d better get my skates on! You can buy tickets here.

To top off my summer of tennis, I was fortunate enough to acquire 2 tickets for the Men’s final Day at Wimbledon! These were like gold dust and my friend & I couldn’t quite believe our luck as I had won the right to buy these in a ballot via our gym, David Lloyd & only paid a modest sum for them.

Well, the big day did not disappoint. It was our first visit to the Matriarch of match venues and it certainly lived up to the hype.  On the day, Henman Hill was alive with eager fans watching live on the neck-craning stadium sized screen. We bypassed that & took our seats to enjoy the Male Youth Singles Final which was thrilling enough in itself, never mind the epic showdown resulting in another Djokovic triumph which followed.

It was lovely to see Cedric Pioline again there too, playing in the Snr. Gentlemen’s Invitation Doubles, I got a cheeky little wave from him! In fact, it was a veritable Boodles reunion as all of our favourites were in full swing.

We got up close & personal with Martina Hingis, following her triumph in the Ladies Doubles the day before and she was smiling as always!

It was a celeb-packed fest too, as always, and our top spots were Mr. Selfridge, Thierry Henry, Pippa Middleton, Benedict Cumberbatch and Helena Bonham Carter!

Our visit had to be topped off with an obligatory trot to the giftshop where, in our post final euphoria, we overspent on branded goodies to keep the memories alive until 2016. Wimbledon truly is a sporting spectacle and it was a thrill to be part of it.

Have you been following the tennis this summer? Who is your favourite player?