Tennis fans snap photos of USA’s winning Fed Cup team on Feb. 12, 2017 at the Royal Lahaina Tennis Ranch. The Tennis Ranch is closing its 11-court facility at the end of the year. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Maui will lose one of its most recognized and oldest sports venues, at least for now, when the Royal Lahaina Tennis Ranch closes its 11-court facility at the end of the calendar year.
John and Cynthia Monnier, the facility’s operators since 1995, made the excruciating decision recently in light of the Aug. 8 Lahaina wildfire. They informed The Maui News of the decision over the Thanksgiving weekend that they will cease operations on Dec. 31.
The stadium court at the facility has seen several big events, including concerts with the likes of Kenny Loggins and Bob Dylan, and has been the finals stage for several large tournaments. John McEnroe played there in a tournament in 1982.
With the Royal Lahaina Resort’s lodging facilities currently being used for FEMA employees and Lahaina families displaced by the fire — a circumstance that will stretch well into 2024 — the Monniers’ decision had been becoming more and more clear since the fire.
It appears to leave the immediate future for the facility in limbo.
The Royal Lahaina Tennis Ranch is pictured from above. Courtesy photo
“We’re a management company and we’ve managed and run the tennis club as a separate entity for a corporation — and we run it completely independent of the resort, but it’s the resort’s property, they own the land,” Cynthia Monnier, the company’s vice president, said on Tuesday.
Their time running the tennis complex will not be forgotten — the Monniers said they were most sad to see “nine to 10” employees out of work and the long-standing relationships they had with local players and guest players over the years.
“Three out of our four pros lost everything, a lot of our members, too, and then so much of the community,” Cynthia Monnier said. “Our pros lost their homes, their cars, everything. I mean, it’s just devastating, let alone their livelihood in the short term. We have a number of employees, but those three were the (ones) that were greatly affected, that lost everything.”
The couple also runs All Court Hawaii Inc., a construction company that surfaces all kinds of athletic courts across the state, and is still up and running full force.
With not much demand to play tennis from the current residents of the Royal Lahaina Resort, the Monniers’ decision became inevitable.
“Their focus on the recovery efforts — God bless them — from Day 1 has been on the recovery,” Cynthia Monnier said. “You know, with FEMA, the Red Cross, the displaced folks and that is their longterm goal, 2024 into 2025. It’s really their concentration, focus, all their efforts, are in that. They are not even having any visitors or anything moving forward.
“So, after the fire and the devastation, it didn’t make fiscal sense to reopen the pro shop right away. And our pros either went to the Mainland (because) they had nowhere to live or have gone to other parts of the island and whatnot. One of our pros is still in Lahaina side, but it didn’t make fiscal sense.”
The Monniers both look back at their time at the facility with pride.
“John and I had just made that decision, we’re going to move forward with the next chapter in our lives and retire out of the management area of tennis, but we still have our other company which we are going to be running, we’re still running full-time, 100 percent,” Cynthia Monnier said. “We’re going to be retiring out of the management of the tennis club just because of the timing and the focus of Royal Lahaina, their main focus in the recovery efforts on the west side. … It’s going to be a while.”
The Monniers have lived at the Royal Lahaina Resort for the last 28 years, while also maintaining a home on Oahu to run their court resurfacing business.
“That’s been our home for 28 years, so it’s a difficult decision, it’s a hard move,” Cynthia Monnier said. “But, you know, we’ve loved it, it’s been fabulous, all the pro tournaments, everything, Fed Cup, all that. Concerts, I mean, it’s been a great run there and we’re going to miss it and everybody, but we’re not leaving the tennis community.”
The Royal Lahaina Challenger tournament was held at the facility from 2014-17, featuring players ranked between Nos. 51-150 in the world — the finals were shown on the Tennis Channel. Several first-round main draw winners/second-round losers from the Australian Open made the quick trip to West Maui for the annual event in January.
In February 2017, the United States defeated Germany in a Fed Cup quarterfinal — that team event is remembered by many for the incorrect version of the German national anthem, dating to the World War II era, being played during the opening ceremony. The United States Tennis Association issued an official apology for their mistake to the Germans and the news of the event went worldwide.
The last large tennis event held there was the HMSA/HHSAA state high school championships in May 2022.
Maui Preparatory Academy athletic director Zach Bailey is the Maui Interscholastic League tennis coordinator — he helped run the state high school event at the Tennis Ranch 18 months ago.
“It’s very unfortunate,” Bailey said. “I’m very grateful to the Royal Lahaina, and Cynthia and her husband, the Monniers, for their hospitality and allowing us to use those facilities. I know former Maui Prep athletic director Keenan Reader used that facility as well. I’m still new to the game, but they were very welcoming and open to us using it and it’s unfortunate because we do lose some tennis courts on the west side and just another facility to play tennis.
“It’s more so for the kids, just having the opportunity to utilize that space. It’s a beautiful space with multiple courts and for it to not be able to be used, I don’t know, it breaks my heart a little bit.”
John Monnier, the company president, will miss the facility he and his wife ran for nearly three decades.
“It’s incredibly shocking and surprising and unbelievable, I mean, you could go on and on, because you know we had all those concerts and the pro tournaments, year after year,” John Monnier said. “We had some big names start their careers there, actually.”
In May 2019, Tommy Haas won the Hawaii Champions Cup on the stadium court — the tournament for retired professionals also included former French Open champion Michael Chang, Olympic silver medalist Mardy Fish, and Mark Philippousis, a former world top-10 player.
“The end of an era, that’s all I can say,” Cynthia Monnier said.
The pro shop inventory will be sold in a liquidation sale Dec. 9-11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
The Monniers said the plan for the resort’s tennis facility are completely up in the air at this point, a circumstance they understand because of the essential needs being met by the resort.
“Once we leave then our hands are out of it, we’re no longer steering the bus,” John Monnier said. “Their plans, from what I can see, don’t envision much in the way of tennis, but we don’t know that, we don’t really know their plans. We’re not certain.”
* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.
Tennis fans snap photos of USA’s winning Fed Cup team on Feb. 12, 2017 at the Royal Lahaina Tennis Ranch. The Tennis Ranch is closing its 11-court facility at the end of the year. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo 
The Royal Lahaina Tennis Ranch is pictured from above. Courtesy photoToday's breaking news and more in your inbox
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