Beyond SW19 , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - Kevin Jefferys

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191 pages

English

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Wimbledon has long stood at the pinnacle of British and world tennis. But, as Kevin Jefferys shows in this ground-breaking new study, Britain has a rich history of international standard play beyond SW19, in top-level tournaments and Davis Cup competitions at iconic venues such as Queen's Club, Eastbourne and Edgbaston. The book traces the fluctuating fortunes of a dozen or so tournaments that have brought the world's finest players to English shores during the 140-year history of lawn tennis. Taking a tour around different regions of the country, the author sheds fresh light on the best-known events and on largely forgotten but once high-profile tournaments held in Bristol, Torquay and Scarborough. Both a record and a celebration of England's tennis heritage, the book is packed with stories about memorable players and matches, full results for singles finals and anecdotes about quirky or controversial incidents, ranging from the courtside fire that halted a tournament final to the anti-apartheid protests that disrupted a Davis Cup tie.

Sujets

Inglaterra

History of sport

Tennis

England

Informations

Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	24 mai 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785319419
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Kevin Jefferys, 2021
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785317767
eBook ISBN 9781785319419
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Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Queen s Club
The London Grass Court Championships
London Grass Court Championships Results
The British Covered Court Championships
British Covered Court Championships Results
The Grass Court Championships since the 1970s
Queen s Grass Court Championships Results
2. Surbiton
The Surrey Grass Court Championships
Surrey Grass Court Championships Results
The Surbiton Trophy
Surbiton Trophy Results
3. Beckenham
The Kent All-Comers Championships Results
4. Eastbourne
The South of England Championships
South of England Championships Results
The Eastbourne International
Eastbourne International Results
5. Bournemouth
The British Hard Court Championships Results
6. The West of England
The West of England Championships
West of England Championships Results
The Palace Hotel Tournament, Torquay
Palace Hotel Tournament Results
7. The Northern
Northern Tournament Results
8. Scarborough
The North of England Championships
Hoylake
North of England Championships Results
9. Midland Counties
The Midland Counties Championships
Midland Counties Championships Results
Edgbaston Priory and the Birmingham Classic
Birmingham Classic Results
Nottingham
Nottingham Open Results
10. Wembley, the Albert Hall and the O2 Arena
The Empire Pool, Wembley
Wembley Professional Championships Results
The Royal Albert Hall
Rothmans International Results
Dewar Cup Results
The O2 Arena
ATP World Tour Finals Results
Abbreviations
Notes
Select Bibliography
Photos
Preface
SOME BOOK titles are self-explanatory. Readers are unlikely to be surprised by what they find between the covers of, say, The A-Z of London , or an A-Z of any major city. Other titles are more difficult to second-guess. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas , for example, might leave uninitiated readers intrigued as to what s to come in the novel by American author Tom Robbins. My chosen title and sub-title fall somewhere between these two opposite extremes and so perhaps require an explanation at the outset.
Even those with only a passing interest in the sport of tennis will know that the annual summer gathering held at Wimbledon in London SW19 is special. One of Britain s finest competitors of the 20th century, Bunny Austin, wrote in his memoir A Mixed Double , All players will agree there is no tournament experience to equal The Championships at Wimbledon. The vast attendance, the excitement of the crowd, the perfection of the conditions, the efficiency of the management, all combine to lift it above any other tournament or championship in the world [see p. 94]. Austin s view as a player is no doubt shared by the hosts of officials, coaches, journalists, media outlets and spectators who flock to London from around the world each summer, and could be applicable to any period in Wimbledon s illustrious history - from the early days of the Victorian pioneers through to the modern era of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray.
But however enduring, significant and popular it is, Wimbledon does not tell the whole story of high-quality tennis played on English shores. At the start of 2020 the game s domestic governing body, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), looked forward to another year of world-class tennis around the country , having in mind tournaments such as those at Queen s Club, Eastbourne, Edgbaston, Nottingham and Manchester, as well as at the highlight of the grass-court season in London SW19. The LTA s hopes for the summer were of course dashed - in common with much of the nation s sporting and social life - by the global COVID-19 pandemic, but the underlying sentiment and reasoning stands. As this study sets out to demonstrate, international-standard tennis has long been on display Beyond SW19 , at a range of locations and tournaments in addition to the revered showcase at Wimbledon.
As for the sub-title, this alludes to the scope and timescale of the book s coverage. My main focus is on tennis featuring top stars of the sport played primarily, but not exclusively, at tournaments such as those referred to above. Because venues such as Queen s and Eastbourne (and several less-well-known settings, the likes of Bristol and Scarborough) have also staged other forms of international competition that are included in what follows, notably numerous Davis Cup ties, a sub-title along the lines of a history of leading tournaments apart from Wimbledon would not altogether encompass the content of the main chapters. Instead, what readers will find in these pages, one hopes, is an overview, assessment and celebration of the various forms of world-class tennis played at key locations around the country from the 1880s to the present day.
Acknowledgements
FOR HELP during the course of researching and preparing my text, I d especially like to thank Dr Matt Cole, for his assistance in relation to the history of Edgbaston; David Baker at Beckenham Sports Club; and staff at the Bristol Reference Library. My debt to the writings and recollections of formers players, journalists and officials is suitably acknowledged, I hope, in the Notes at the end of the book. I d also like to express my gratitude to the many excellent websites that have aided the research process. These include:
www.beckenhamtennisclub.co.uk ;
www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk ;
www.eastbournetennis.com ;
www.thenorthern.co.uk ; www.surbiton.org ;
www.tennisarchives.com ;
www.thetennisbase.com ; www.tennisforum.com ;
and www.westhants.co.uk .
While appreciative to all those concerned for their valuable assistance, it should be added that responsibility for any errors or omissions rests with the author alone.
I m grateful once more to the support and expert guidance of Pitch Publishing in bringing the project to fruition, notably to Jane Camillin, Paul Camillin, Duncan Olner and Graham Hales. Thanks also to Andrea Dunn.
For permission to use the photographs reproduced on the cover and inside the book I d like to thank Getty Images and Alamy.
The front jacket photographs show (clockwise from the top):
Jimmy Connors with the men s singles trophy at Queen s Club, 1982; Althea Gibson holding the women s singles trophy at Surbiton, 1956; Dan Evans in action at Surbiton, 2019 (when he won the men s singles); The British Hard Court Championships in progress at Bournemouth, 1969; Martina Navratilova with the trophy at Eastbourne, 1983; Dorothy Round competing at Beckenham, 1931.
The inside front cover photograph shows Andy Murray and Feliciano Lopez (nearest to camera) in action against Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram in the men s doubles final at the Queen s Championships in June 2019. The inside back image is an aerial view of the South of England Championships at Devonshire Park, Eastbourne, taken in 1905.
The back jacket cover features Billie Jean King, en route to victory in the singles final at Edgbaston in 1983, and Vijay Amritraj, winner of the Bristol Open in 1986.
The running order of the images inside the book, it might be added, follows the structure of the main chapters/tournaments, rather than being arranged in, say, chronological date order.
Finally, I d like to say a big thank you, during these challenging pandemic times, to Sue, Pete, Kate, Katie and James for their ongoing love, support and inspiration.
Kevin Jefferys
February 2021
Introduction
FOR A sport that originated as a genteel English garden-party pursuit - and was derided by critics in its formative years as mere pat-ball - lawn tennis has a surprisingly long history of keen competition. The knockout tournament, pitting players one against the other and embedding a strong culture of winning and losing, has been a staple of the game since it began and started to spread in the 1870s. This book sets out to illustrate the longevity, high quality and variety of competitive tennis that has taken place on English shores outside of Wimbledon.
Before saying more about the tournaments and locations that provide the focus of the individual chapters, it s important to set the scene by outlining the framework in which top-tier meetings operated. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that in the 140-year history of lawn tennis so far there have been three overlapping but quite distinct phases in the evolution of what the LTA in 2020 described as world-class tennis around the country .
The first phase runs from the 1880s through to the First World War in 1914, and witnessed the emergence and development of a flourishing tournament scene, such that the United Kingdom - as might be expected of the nation that pioneered the sport - led the world in the hosting of highly regarded open tournaments. In the late-Victorian period and beyond, the term open referred to events in which any amateur player was eligible to compete, as distinct from the closed meetings