Sport: Tennis Hall of Fame

U.S. lawn tennis grew up at the Newport Casino. There, from 1881 until 1914, the earliest National championship matches were played.* The Newport Invitation men’s singles tournament is still ranked by many as second only to the Nationals.

Last week the Casino’s guiding fathers decided that American tennis has gone too long without an official shrine. They voted to turn one of their rambling old buildings, recently used as a storehouse, into a tennis Hall of Fame. Said Casino President James H. Van Alen: “The Casino is to tennis what Cooperstown, N.Y. is to baseball and Rutgers University is to football.”

Once the hall has been cleaned out and tidied up, the Casino elders plan to fill it with relics and sport curios. On its walls will hang photographs of such court immortals as Richard D. Sears, Robert D. Wrenn, Bill Tilden and Don Budge. The racquets they used and the clothes they wore while making tennis history will be on display. U.S. tennis fans were not too preoccupied with this week’s Nationals to ignore Van Alen’s announcement; the Hall of Fame already has a sizable kitty.

* The tournament was held at Forest Hills’ West Side Tennis Club from 1915 until 1920, moved for the next three years to Philadelphia’s Germantown Cricket Club, and returned to Forest Hills in 1924, where it has been held ever since.