Riccardo Piatti chooses Mapei for his sports Academy of excellence
When creating his club of excellence the tennis coach, Riccardo Piatti, tested and scrutinized a number of options so that his athletes would be able to train on the best performing sports surfaces available in terms of ball control and in-court play.
Comfort was the Kantian imperative for the entire project, for which Mapei proposed its very own MAPECOAT TNS COMFORT system, consisting of a mat in granular rubber and a final multi-layered finish of selected acrylic resins. And the final finishes, which were selected to guarantee the playing speed required, were personalised according to their specific needs.
Apart from supplying all the sports-grade products for the 4 indoor and outdoor courts, Mapei was also the ideal partner in the Club House, supplying a host of solutions and materials for the ceramics, screeds, waterproofing work and the roofs.
In the 19th century Bordighera, a small town on the coast of Liguria, was the seaside retreat of Italian and European nobility, as well as the summer residence of Margherita of Savoia, Queen of Italy. Bordighera is also famous for being the summer residence of both the architect Jean-Louis-Charles Garnier (who designed the Opera House in Paris) and the painter Claude Monet. In 1878, it was here that a group of British residents founded the first ever tennis club outside the British territory, with 15 clay courts for use by the various VIPs and nobility that frequented the area at the time.
No wonder that a world-renowned tennis coach, such as Riccardo Piatti, chose Bordighera as the base for his club. Piatti is the most successful Italian tennis coach at an international level. He started working as a private coach in 1988, following talented players such as Renzo Furlan, Cristiano Caratti, and Omar Camporese. He also worked with Ivan Ljubičić, Novak Djokovic, Milos Raonic and Richard Gasquet. Today, he is working with one of the leading players in the world, Borna ćorić, and is also manager and head coach of the Piatti Tennis Team.
A TOP-LEVEL TENNIS CENTER
The club was inaugurated on the evening of Thursday, the 12th of April. The inauguration was a special event for the centre and the guests included some of the best players in the world, as well as other VIPs and representatives from various bodies from the world of tennis.
Amongst the top players that certainly didn’t want to miss the event were the Croatian Marin Cilic, the Austrian Dominic Thiem, another leading Croatian player, Borna Coric (who is currently one of the players followed by staff of the Piatti Tennis Center), and the Canadian players Denis Shapovalov and Milos Raonic.
The Piatti Tennis Team is made up of a group of professionals who have pooled all their expertise to provide a complete, all-encompassing service to the members of tennis schools, their pupils and to any players interested in this service, to help optimise the performance of every single athlete.
Their intention is to create an innovative approach to the coaching of tennis players and provide athletes with a technical and psychological-physical support network on a daily basis through thanks to well-coordinated specialists.
THE WORKS
The newly constructed Tennis Piatti Center included the installation of 4 new tennis courts made from MAPECOAT TNS COMFORT, a multi-layered system used to create both indoor and outdoor courts with excellent playing comfort, ideal for those who use the courts for hours on a daily basis. This system was only chosen once coach Piatti had performed out an in-depth analysis and evaluation, who declared this system the best technical solution to carry out his work.
To complete the courts the following products were used: ULTRABOND TURF 2 STARS, solvent and water-free polyurethane adhesive for bonding the MAPECOMFORT flexible rubber matting, MAPECOAT TNS PRIMER EPW, two-component epoxy primer in water dispersion, MAPECOAT TNS GREY BASE COAT, semi-flexible, acrylic resin-based basecoat and filling paste in water dispersion, MAPECOAT TNS FINISH 1, coloured acrylic resin-based coating product in water dispersion certified by the ITF (International Tennis Federation), MAPECOAT TNS COLOR, fine-grained coloured coating made from acrylic resin in water dispersion and micro-granular quartz sand, and MAPECOAT TNS LINE, acrylic resin-based paint in water dispersion for marking out indoor and outdoor sports courts and pitches.
This project clearly shows that Mapei is the ideal partner for both designers and users.
In fact, various Mapei products were employed to waterproof substrates and structures (MAPELASTIC), installing ceramic tiles (TOPCEM PRONTO, KERAFLEX, KERAFLEX MAXI S1 ZERØ, KERAQUICK), providing wall coatings (ELASTOCOLOR PAINT), and waterproofing roofs (EVOLIGHT S and EVOLIGHT S MINERAL).
The last step was to cover the roof of the clubhouse with a double layer of EVOLIGHT S and EVOLIGHT S Mineral membranes from the REOXTHENE Line, which were chosen because of the need to use high performance products made from a lightweight compound with a high polymer content. The reinforcement incorporated in the membranes gives them particularly high mechanical properties.
Also, the special formulation used for the membranes makes them unique for their flexibility at low temperature and their superior elongation compared with traditional membranes.
The patented, innovative REOXTHENE Ultralight Technology used to manufacture these membranes is a further guarantee of their quality, stability and extended lifespan.
Not only do these characteristics increase their durability over the years, they also make them easier to transport and handle on site, easier to apply and install and reduce the load acting on the roof.
For further information on products see www.vagaedilizia.it, and www.polyglass.com
