Heathrow Athletic Club: The Stadium Court Agassi, Sampras and Billie Jean King Played On
Thirteen courts, a sunken stadium court that hosted ATP events in 1990 and 1991, a junior Olympic pool over Lake Corso and six new pickleball courts: the athletic heart of Heathrow, for members only.
3 minute read
Golf gets the headlines at Heathrow, but the community’s athletic soul is arguably on Tournament Drive. The Heathrow Athletic Club — the racquet and fitness arm of Heathrow Country Club — runs a 13-court tennis complex with a sunken stadium center court, an aquatic facility overlooking Lake Corso, a fitness center and, since the club’s 2024 upgrade round, six new pickleball courts. It is members-only, like everything inside the gates, and it carries a piece of tennis history that most Florida clubs would trade a fairway for: Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors and Billie Jean King have all played on its stadium court.
A stadium court with a past
The Racquet Club’s 9,000-square-foot clubhouse anchors a complex of 13 courts — 11 fast clay courts and two hard courts — arranged around the stadium center court. In 1990 and 1991 the facility hosted two ATP tour events, which is how the names above ended up in its record: the sunken stadium court was a tour stop, briefly, at exactly the moment American men’s tennis was producing Agassi, Sampras and their generation. The tennis program has been run for decades by one of Central Florida’s most respected tennis directors, a continuity the club credits for a membership that treats tennis as a first-class sport rather than a golf amenity. Clinics, instruction and competitive play run through the program for adults and juniors alike.
The water side
Adjacent to the courts, the Swim Club centers on a junior Olympic-sized pool overlooking Lake Corso — described in club materials as one of the premier aquatic facilities in Central Florida, and refreshed with a new pool deck in the recent renovation round. The fitness facility sits alongside, and the combined athletic club model matters more than any single feature: Heathrow sells an active daily life, not a tee time. Swim in the morning, clay courts in the evening, fitness classes between — the athletic club is where the community’s non-golfers, and most of its families, actually live their membership.
Pickleball arrives, properly
The six new pickleball courts added in the 2024 Heathrow Legacy upgrade program deserve a note, because of how they were added: as part of a $3 million capital plan that also rebuilt the Garl Course’s greens and installed TopTracer at the range, not as a couple of taped lines on a tennis court. That is the difference between a club chasing a trend and a club funding one. Pickleball at Heathrow sits inside the racquet program’s coaching and social structure, which is how the sport sustains itself in communities like this one rather than flaring and fading.
The family layer
The athletic club is also where Heathrow Legacy runs the machinery of family membership. The clubs offer in-house sitter care for kids, a calendar of events and classes across both properties, and indoor and outdoor dining year-round — the unglamorous infrastructure that decides whether a country club membership gets used on a wet Tuesday in February or only on perfect Saturdays. Junior tennis and swim programming feed from the same base, which is how a community of this size sustains competitive teams and full clinic rosters: the athletic club is not an amenity appended to a golf course, but the daily headquarters of the membership’s younger half.
How membership works here
Access is through Heathrow Legacy Country Club membership — the club offers tennis and social categories alongside its golf memberships, for households whose Heathrow life is courts and pool rather than fairways — and through the community itself, since the athletic club is the amenity core for residents who join at that level. Guests come with members. There is no public drop-in, no day pass, no resort access, and we say so plainly because club websites rarely do.
For the golf side of the same membership, see our profiles of Heathrow Country Club and The Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes. For the public, outdoor version of an active day in this corridor — the nearly 14-mile Seminole Wekiva Trail runs just outside the gates — see our trail guide and the full picture on the Heathrow hub.
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