Emma will give a 60-minute tennis clinic at the resort’s jungle-clad, US Open-standard tennis courts.
She will also attend a meet-and-greet and just like any other 19-year-old is excited about going out to the teardrop isles.
She said: ‘I’m delighted to discover the Maldives for the first time. I will have an amazing time there.’
Kings and queens of court
Off Pat: Rafter is a fan
Baa Atoll has become something of a magnet for the cream of tennis.
With former World No. 1s Angelique Kerber and Pat Rafter and Olympic gold medallist Sasha Zverev and Davis Cup winner Viktor Troicki all gracing its courts.
And those of us who have been out to the Maldives have always been mighty glad to have an alternative to water sports.
Because as enjoyable as they are, if like me you weren’t born with a snorkel in your mouth scuba diving doesn’t come naturally.
Howzat!
Lounging around: In Kuramathi
And you’ll be glad for a game of football or cricket with the staff as I did in Kuramathi.
And cool down later in your own infinity pool.
All of which should appeal to the jet set tennis player.
Get the Braai on: Port Elizabeth township, South Africa
The one niggling issue though is the status of the through countries to get to Gib and St Helena with neither Spain nor South Africa on the green list.
St Helena remains unfinished business.
With my walk in the footsteps of Le Petit Caporal ahead of this month’s 200th anniversary of his death there cancelled at the last minute.
Ice, ice baby
Bracing: Iceland will invigorate you
But while the PIGS pushed themselves out, as they do, as the big winners on the UK Green List there are others celebrating today.
Iceland also makes it onto the list and a long-promised visit to the Iceland Phallological Museum where all the Big Dicks hang out.
While the Faroes too, between Iceland and Norway, await and are tempting us with nature and wellness and hairy Vikings.
Further afield Singapore, and Brunei are long-haul bucket list favourites.
St George’s association with England is long, dating back 1200 years to the Venerable Bede.
Morris dancing
And he had to see off the rival claims of Thomas A Beckett and Edward the Confessor, before he was made patron saint.
St George’s Day, I am happy to report (my own English rose has told me to say that), is making something of a comeback in England www.visitengland.com.
I’m in good company, with footballers Paul Pogba, Victor Lindelof and Brandon Williams all fans of my honeymoon island… we’re all United for Malta I guess.
The three Manchester United players were only too happy to flag up the jewel of the Mediterannean.
With Malta the club’s official destination partner.
Gozo views
French World Cup winner Pogba said: ‘It’s beautiful, there aren’t a lot of people and I can go there with my family.
He picked out St Peter’s Pool in Delimara.
While Lindelof is rightly taken by Comino.
Valletta you better you bet
The idea is to put together a postcard (remember them) of Malta.
And for many a parent the go-to Christmas present for kids (and maybe vice-versa) was a football top.
My most memorable was, and this is pertinent in a week when we lost Diego Maradona, La Albiceleste.
Or the sky blue and white stripes.
Truth was that my attempts at long hair never came close to the chic cool of the hero of that year’s World Cup, Mario Kempes.
And physical evidence still exists in a picture album of a rather angst-ridden teen standing by the tree.
In truth I hadn’t asked for Argentina and would have preferred the Dutch shirt.
And I did rue the day I left the World Cup winners’ top behind in a changing room.
So in recognition of Diego and also to flag up a very good cause comedian Mark Watson’s Kitmas appeal for donations of old football tops here are my five faves.
Which will, of course, draw you to these countries.
Dutch of class
Argentina and the Netherlands in the World Cup final in 1978.
The Netherlands: And it was probably just as well that my parents didn’t give me the Dutch top in the Glasgow of the Seventies.
Because an orange top is identified in Scotland with King William of Orange and the Protestant team Rangers.
And that wouldn’t have gone down well in my Catholic school.
Thing was though that as an eight-year-old and uncluttered by such nonsense I was dazzled by that colour.
And the Netherlands of Cruyff and Krol.
And I did manage to blend in with the Oranje Army when I treated the-then Miss F to a night out.
Amsterdam to Rotterdam where the Dutch beat the Greeks 1-0.
Portuguese man of awe
Team of all talents: Portugal in 1986
Portugal: And while it’s mostly always the top you get sometimes you need the whole shirt and shorts ensemble.
So that Portugal‘s red top with the addition of green shorts becomes the Portugal flag.
Our guide Jose Madomis told us from the off that Portugal in the days of the dictator Salazar was run on Football, Fado and Fatima.
So much so that among all the stands of Our Lady merch in Fatima you’ll find the Portuguese shirt and Cristiano Ronaldo towel!
Moroccan roll
Green is the colour: Morocco
Morocco: And not just because they were Scotland’s last opponents in the finals of a major competition, a 3-0 defeat in 1998.
But because of the lengths I went to to get myself a Morocco top
On my travels in Marrakech. I picked the green one rather than the red.
Where I got roped in by a trader after some pointless bartering.
To buy his threadbare top off his stall for more than its worth.
Which set in motion a tragical mystery tour from Jemaa el-Fna around the souks.
And that was just the start of my rocky Moroccan roll.
Roman holiday
Hotti Totti: Roma legend Francesco Totti
Roma: And we’re still waiting to get to see the Gods of calcio after Dad here promised the Son and Heir a match only to forget his passport.
But we did get a Giallorossi (red, more of a maroon, and yellow piping) top snd pencil case.
Denmark: And Mads Langer doesn’t let a small thing like lockdown make him down his mic.
Mads sold 500 tickets for a concert at Tangkrogen outside Aarhus, Denmark’s second city after Copenhagen.
The cars were rockin’ and rollin’!
Airport movies
Bringing some colour into our lives
Edinburgh Airport: And all of this drive-thrumania has been triggered by the news that my local airport Edinburgh is putting on a Halloween offering.
Drive-ins were always the stuff of James Dean movies (the first drive-in cinema was actually New Jersey, not LA).
You never forget your first time though and that for me was Toronto and a Bond movie, The Living Daylights. And while our first albums are usually embarrassing I’m happy with that choice.
Anyhoos back to Edinburgh. You’ll get Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, Coco, The Lost Boys, Jaws (not nearly as terrifying at Universal Studios Hollywood) and Halloween.
November brings us Back to the Future, Rocketman, Mamma Mia and more.
There’s entertainment galore, food and drink from local producers Cold Town Beer and Alandas plus DJ Captain Calverto will entertain you before each film with car discos. singalongs and quiz fun.
They’ve offered me (and I guess you too) the chance to win tickets.
And you might even see a plane flying overhead… and hopefully I’ll be on it.
Rio Formosa, Quinta do Lago, Algarve: And anyone who didn’t think that God has a sense of humour hasn’t paid attention to how he made us all.
For every pink flamingo there’s a Spoonbill.
I found these fancy snouted fellas in the Via Formosa in Quinta do Lago in the Algarve…
Their bills, of course, are purpose-built to scoop up all that pond life to give them fuel for the skies.
Yes, Pink Flamingoes
In the pink: In Busch Gardens
Pink Flamingoes, Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay, Florida: And for those Fiftysomethings among us the opening shots for the Florida soap Flamingo Road made us fall in love with these birds
Yes, and Morgan Fairchild, to be fair.
I got up close with a flamingo out in SeaWorld and again he is a reminder of God’s Grandeur.
Heron good things about you
You’ll have a long wingspan then
Herons, Kuramathi, The Maldives: And you know when a bird has her eye on you.
She even came into the pool with me every morning.
Kuramathi is a bird-watcher’s dream, big, small, skinny, plump, and every colour.
And as bird-watching is a stationary pastime isn’t it a relief that you don’t have to freeze your whatsits off either?
Caribbean wood doves and mockingbirds
The West Indies:Rihanna, my wood dove used to join me in my hot tub in Barbados of a morning… and leave a mess in the bedroom.
I would forgive Rihanna anything though.
The West Indians take their nature very seriously, just as seriously as their rum and their music.
And Ean The Birdman of Tobago will show you around his Adventure Eco Villas where the birdies will twirl and tweet around your head.
You can stay too and awake to birdsong.
And not forgetting the Duck
Ducks everywhere: Whether they’re the rubber ones in your bath at Hastings Hotels in Northern Ireland (or in mine).
Or with The Donald in Epcot in Florida or in Anaheim.
Following the Duckmaster and the quackers down to the fountain in the hotel lobby in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.
Never mind the dishes, I’m smashing the whole cabinet after Scotland jumped the gun and took Greece off the exempt list.
Plate-smashing dates back to classical times when it was seen as a display of ostentatious wealth.
Quite why modern-day dictator Georgios Papadopoulos banned it from 1967-1974 you’ll have to get there and ask yourself.
But alas, those of us of a Scottish variety, or who live in Scotland, will have to wait.
In this disunited kingdom of ours we all do things differently and we are now waiting to see which way the English go.
And while we expect they will bring the hammer down on the Greeks.
Kythera’s charms
There is a glimmer of hope in the west where the ancient Britons went.
Yes, Wales, where their assembly is employing a selective approach.
With two COVID tests for those returning from Zante, one in 48 hours and another in eight days.
Bending over backwards for Greece
And this breakthrough in common sense is something to sing about.
Which is, of course, why it will be ignored by everyone else.
With TUI putting Zante on hold, if only there were any other Greek islands to visit.
As we contemplate going through England and Wales.
Funky Portugal Centro
Oh, and in this game of hokey-cokey, as my friends in the Scottish Passenger Agents Association coin it, Portugal is set to follow tomorrow.
I’m intrigued to see that the lowest rates are in the less-visited but captivating Portugal Centro.
Where my old friend, Jose ‘The Special One’ Madomis, will tell you that everything good which ever happened in Portugal started in his home town, Coimbra.
You’d think you’d get splendid isolation at the top of the most cycled climb, Le Col du Tourmalet, but you don’t. It’s the Tour de Friends!
I have a chequered history of cycling which shouldn’t qualify me to join my fellow Scot Robert Millar in that chequered shirt as King of the Mountains.
Hiring bikes with the-then Miss F in Cabanas in the Algarve I was eating dust yards into our ride.
There’s always another mountain
While I also took a turn too sharply in the Ria Formosa in Quinta Do Lago and almost ended up in the lake.
But that didn’t put me off when I started working nights and opted to cycle in and, out of Edinburgh, through Holyrood Park to the office.
And I’ve got the lead
Never mind the Tour de France, the Tour d’Edinburgh is the real endurance test!
I’ve had lads party spray paint me when I was on my bike, been waterbombed and been knocked off my bike.
And I even had time to drop off for a bier
But I got there in the end… ‘on top of the world, Ma.’
With a little help from my friends.
I’ll let you into a secret here. I only borrowed a real rider’s bike at the top of the Pyrenees… don’t tell.
Mind you this is the Tour where the rules are there to be bent.
Whaddya mean? This is refuelling
The Tour started this weekend and I’m thinking they’ll have a devil of a time stopping the public come out to cheer.
Vive Le Tour!
And newsflash here from A Queer in Provence who has sent me his vlog on Le Grand Depart from Nice…. https://youtu.be/XQ2Udd7rcLg
Paralympic heroes
Prize guy: Ireland’s Paralympic hero Mark Rohan
As a young lad running around the UK’s boggy fields and dirty streets I always envisaged that I would get my hands on Olympic gold.
The Olympics’ loss was Newspapers’ gain.
But destiny was calling when I met Irish Paralympian hero Brian Rohan at The Campus in Quinta do Lago.
I’d thought of running off with his medal but he’d have hunted me down in that dream machine.
The Paralympics were due to have started this weekend… but it will be back in Japan next year. Don’t miss it!
Chuck me a hot dog
Fan-tastic… the Angels in Anaheim
With two thousand fans being allowed in at Brighton’s ground for their friendly with Chelsea.
And Scottish rugby bringing back a sprinkling of supporters into Murrayfield for the Glasgow v Edinburgh match.
It beggars the question… how do we get fed?
Well, here’s something we could take from American sport… the chucked hot dog.
Where’s the mustard?
As I lapped up (including the mustard) at the California Angels game in Anaheim.
Mother Thames… and Mother Sadie
And with my Croatia friends on World Cup final day in 2018
Put your shirt on me
Bringing some colour into our lives
In the pink: In Busch Gardens
You’ll have a long wingspan then
Funky Portugal Centro
And I’ve got the lead
