By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
There has always been a heated rivalry in sports between New York City and Philadelphia – whether it is the Eagles and Giants in the National Football League, the Phillies and the Mets in Major League Baseball or the Rangers and the Flyers in the National Hockey League.
The rivalry also had its episodes in tennis.
One hundred years ago In 1915, tennis representatives from Philadelphia sought to “black-ball” New York as the site of the U.S. Championships, the modern-day U.S. Open.
Concern had arisen in the ranks of the modern-day U.S. Tennis Association that The Casino at Newport, R.I. (site of the modern-day International Tennis Hall of Fame) had grown too small and remote as the site for the U.S. Championships and after and wildly successful Davis Cup series at New York’s West Side Tennis Club the previous summer, attracting the largest crowds to ever watch tennis at the time (14,000), New York was favored to become the new home of the event. Representatives from Philadelphia, however, were bent on New York not hosting the event, favoring to either keep the event in Newport and eventually bringing the event to Philadelphia.
“Philadelphia will do all in its power to prevent New York from weaning the national championship tournament away from Newport,” wrote the New York Times with a dateline from Philadelphia on January 22, 1915, in advance of the USTA’s Annual Meeting where the site of the upcoming U.S. men’s singles championships would be determined. “Sooner than see this classic shifted to New York, the local (Philadelphia) contingent will put up a fight to bring it to this city.”
Leading the Philadelphia effort to prevent New York from hosting the tournament was Al Hoskins, vice president of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association and member of Philadelphia’s Merion Cricket Club, who rallied a meeting to instruct delegates to the annual meeting of the modern-day USTA to vote in favor of Newport.
“Mr. Hoskins says New York is not equipped to hold the tourney and, even if it was, Philadelphia and Boston are more logical places for holding the event among other things,” wrote the New York Times. “Mr. Hopkins attacks the commercialism of sport in New York.”
The New York Times quotes Hoskins saying, “Newport should be retained for at least another year. We owe this much to Newport for the wonderful success this tourney has had in the past 34 years. If it is been taken from Newport, Philadelphia and Boston deserve to have it sooner the New York. New York probably wants it to commercialize tennis, as it has other sports. The West Side Tennis Club on Long Island is merely a landscape and not a suitable place to hold a national tourney. First of all, it lacks facilities. Their clubhouse is inadequate and, in fact, it would be a farce if held there. The Merion Cricket Club of this city, which has done wonders for tennis, is better equipped and more logical place to hold the affair but Newport is deserving of the tourney for another year…. Newport has always made a success of the event. It is a social center and very well-equipped to stage the tourney. We are obligated to Newport and will fight any move to New York may make to win it away from that city.”
New York ended up being voted the new site of the tournament, but Philadelphia did get its shot at hosting the men’s singles event. Philadelphia had hosted the women’s singles tournament since 1887, but from 1921 to 1923, hosted the men’s singles event – based on the popularity of Philadelphia’s own Bill Tilden, the best player in the world at the time, while the women’s event was played at West Side Tennis Club.
After the completion of the permanent 14,000-seat horseshoe-shaped stadium at West Side Tennis Club in 1923, the men’s singles event returned permanently to New York. West Side Tennis Club hosted the men’s and women’s singles every year until 1978, when the event moved to the present-day USTA National Tennis Center down the road in Flushing Meadows.
