Happy Birthday to the USTA! It was 130 years ago today that the national governing body for tennis in the United States was founded in New York City. Here’s the excerpt from the May 21 chapter of my book ON THIS DAY IN TENNIS HISTORY ($19.95, New Chapter Press, www.TennisHistoryBook.com)
1881 – The United States National Lawn Tennis Association – the modern day U.S. Tennis Association – is founded in Room F of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City. The founding of the association is precipitated by the need to bring uniformity to a game that had been imported to this country only six years before. From the time Mary Outerbridge brings a tennis set to U.S. shores from Bermuda until the organizational meeting of what would be known as the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, the rules of the game, including the height of the net, the distance of the service line from the net and, primarily, the size of the ball, varies from region to region. “It was because of the question of the balls, and for the better promotion of the game at large, that I requested the directors of my club to be authorized to try to organize a national association,” says Eugenius Outerbridge, Mary’s brother and secretary of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club. R.S. Oliver of the Albany Tennis Club is elected as first president of the new USNLTA. In addition, rules are established setting the size of an official tennis ball between 2½ inches and 2-9/16 inches in diameter and between 1-7/8 ounces and 2 ounces in weight.