Longwood Cricket Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Longwood Cricket Club is a tennis club based in Chestnut Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the site of the first Davis Cup tie competed.
Contents |
[edit] History
A club for cricket was opened in 1877 at Longwood estate, a place named after the house Napolean Bonaparte stayed at while exiled to St. Helena. Located near Fenway Park on the outskirts of Boston, cricketers and baseball players put Longwood on the sports map. Specifically, Harry Wright, first player manager of the Boston Red Socks played cricket for the United States as did his brother George Wright. George Wright combined with the tennis pro Charlie Chambers in league games throughout New England and played at Longwood against Lord Harris' XI in 1891. George Wright was the co-proprietor of Wright and Ditman purveyor of fine sports goods. Wright brought the first tennis gear to Boston on his return from a baseball-cricket tour of England in 1874. Wright also taught tennis to Havard students and toured with them in California in 1890. It was George Wright who desrves the credit for Longwood's broad based sporting tradition having excelled in baseball and cricket as a paid professional and tennis as an imaginative promoter of the game. Source: David Sentance, Cricket in America 1710-2000, p190. A lawn tennis court was laid in 1878, two years after the organization of the All England Tennis Club at Lord's Cricket Ground in London.
Richard D. Sears, who won 7 United States Championships would soon become a club member.
The club's first tennis tournament was held in 1882. The Eastern Championship for doubles tennis was held in 1890. The following year saw Longwood Bowl tournament was held, attracting top American players. It would continue to be held annually until 1942.
The last cricket was played at Longwood in 1933.
[edit] Davis Cup beginnings
In 1900 Dwight Davis, then a fourth-year student of nearby Harvard University, arranged for a British team visit Longwood and compete for what became the first Davis Cup tie, branded the International Lawn Tennis Challenge. The Davis-captained Americans won the inaugural contest 3-0.
[edit] Davis Cup ties at Longwood
In total fifteen Davis Cup ties have been settled at Longwood. The British Isles defeated the Americans 4-1 in the 1903 final. The 1908 semi-final saw the Americans reverse their fortunes and prevail by the same score.
The next eight ties played at Longwood did not involve the American team. 1914 saw Australasia defeat Britain 3-0 in a semi-final. 1922 through 1925 saw a tie played a year with Australasia defeating France 4-1 in a quarterfinal encounter in '22, Australia beating France by the same score in a '23 semi-final and in '24, but by a 3-2 scoreline, and Australia defeating Japan 4-1 in '25.
After France swept Japan 5-0 in a 1927 semi-final, Davis Cup would not return to Longwood for 11 years, with Australia defeating Nazi Germany 5-0 in the 1938 semi-final. A further decade would elapse before in 1948 Australia won another semi, this time over Czechoslovakia, 3-1. In 1957, the U.S. team returned to Brookline to defeat Brazil 5-0 in a 3rd round tie. Two years later saw Australia despatch with India 4-1 in the penultinate round.
Another forty years would pass before in 1999, Australia, led by Pat Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt defeated the U.S., led by Pete Sampras, 4-1 in a quarterfinal tie played on hardcourts. This is last time top-flight professional tennis was played at Longwood.
[edit] U.S. Pro Championship
The U.S. Pro Tennis Championships professional tennis tournament was contested annually at Longwood from 1964 to 1999, when was discontinued, with the exception of 1995, when the tournament was rained out and 1996, when it was not scheduled.
[edit] Source
| Preceded by first competition | Davis Cup Final Venue 1900 | Succeeded by Crescent Athletic Club Brooklyn |
| Preceded by Crescent Athletic Club Brooklyn | Davis Cup Final Venue 1903 | Succeeded by Worple Road London |
