Lovers of grass-court tennis get just five weeks each year to enjoy watching the sport being played on their favourite surface.
One of these people is Barbora Strycova, the retired Czech tennis player who reached the Wimbledon singles semifinals in 2019 as well as winning last year’s doubles title, her second women’s doubles crown at the All England Club.
"It's just like pity that it wasn't more (grass) tournaments during the season, because just three tournaments before Wimbledon, and then Wimbledon, and then that's it,” she lamented in a guest appearance on the No Challenges Remaining podcast.
“I'm like, that's a bummer. I would love to play the whole season on grass!”
Had she been competing half a century ago, she certainly could have played a lot more professional tournaments on the surface.
And that’s where we begin our examination of 10 grass-court tournaments you may never have known once existed.
1. US Open
Fifty years ago, the US Open was played for the final time on grass.
Back when it was held at Forest Hills in New York, the tournament was played every year on grass from its inception in 1881 until 1974.
The courts were then converted to green clay for the next three editions of the tournament (1975 to 1977) before the US Open relocated to Flushing Meadows and became a hard-court Slam from 1978 onward.
It’s the only Grand Slam event to be staged on three different surfaces, and Jimmy Connors triumphed on all three – he won the final grass-court edition in 1974, on clay in 1976, and the first hard-court iteration in 1978 (plus two more in 1982 and 1983).
2. US National doubles championship
For much of its history, right into the early years of pro tennis, the US doubles championships were not staged alongside the singles at Forest Hills, but instead on the lawns of Boston’s Longwood Cricket Club.
The historic venue is also famous for hosting several notable Davis Cup ties, including the very first between the United States and Great Britain in 1900.
3. South Orange Open
First played in 1946, the tournament – originally known as the Eastern Grass Court Championships – was a significant grass-court lead-up event for the US Open.
It was hosted on grass at the Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange, New Jersey until 1974, switching to clay in 1975 in line with the US Open’s surface change. The tournament ceased as a tour-level stop after 1983.
According to the club’s website, the inaugural event “marked the beginning of the ‘glory years’ of tennis at OLTC when all the world’s greatest players sought invitations to Orange – the second most prestigious tournament in the US, (behind Nationals at Forest Hills).”
Former champions in its grass-court years include Althea Gibson, Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Stan Smith, Rod Laver and Ilie Nastase.
4. Australian Open
The Australian Open remained a grass-court Grand Slam for longer than the US Open, staged for the final time in 1987 at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club.
The AO moved to the purpose-built Melbourne Park in 1988 and also became a hard-court event.
Stefan Edberg and Hana Mandlikova were the last AO singles champions to win on grass with their 1987 triumphs.
5. Australian tournaments
When the Australian Open was staged on grass, so too were the other Australian summer circuit events.
In January 1987, the men warmed up for the Australian Open on grass in Adelaide, while the women did so in Brisbane and Sydney's White City. Immediately following the AO, the men headed to Sydney for their week of the NSW Open at White City.
As tennis writer and historian Suzi Petkovski notes: “All the Australian state championships were played on grass until around the time of the Australian Open’s move to Flinders/Melbourne Park.
“The NSW Open, first played in 1883, is even older than the Australian Championships and is one of the oldest continuously run tournaments in the world.”
6. Auckland
This long-running tournament has been staged in Auckland since 1956, with both men’s and women’s singles events.
It was a grass-court tournament every year until switching to hard courts in 1978.
7. Wimbledon lead-ups
“Like in Australia, most counties and regions of Britain had their local events, predominantly on grass,” Petkovski recalled.
“A big one was the North of England Championships, established in 1884 and abolished in 1974. It was played at several venues over the span, mostly in Scarborough when it was a seaside summer resort. It has many Wimbledon winners on its honour roll.”
Indeed, in the early days of the Open era this tournament was won by John Newcombe, Margaret Court, Virginia Wade, Evonne Goolagong, Billie Jean King – all players who triumphed at the All England Club.
There were also several other popular Wimbledon lead-in events, all contested on grass, which no longer exist today as tour-level stops.
These include the Kent Championships at Beckenham, the Bristol and Manchester Opens, and the Chichester women’s tournament in the 1970s.
8. Irish Championships
Later known as the Irish Open, this historic event was first staged in 1879 – just two years after the first edition of Wimbledon – and was once considered among the sport’s most prestigious titles.
As a grass-court event it formed part of the men’s and women’s professional tours in the early 1970s and former winners include King, Court, Goolagong, Wade, Tony Roche, Cliff Drysdale, and Tom Okker.
“John McEnroe, because of his Irish heritage, always wanted to play here but the tournament no longer existed on the official tour,” Petkovski explained.
“He played a couple of exhibitions there ahead of Wimbledon in the early 1980s.”
9. Antalya
Until recently, another grass-court event leading into Wimbledon could be found, of all places, in Asia.
Antalya, a resort city on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast, hosted the 250-level tournament on grass from 2017 to 2019, when the seven courts were curated under the guidance of the All England Club.
The tournament switched to hard courts in 2021 – its last year as a stop on the ATP Tour.
10. Queen’s and Newport, for women
Today’s ATP grass-court events at Queen’s and Newport also used to have women’s singles competitions.
And from 2025, a WTA event will return to Queen’s Club for the first time since 1973, the week prior to the ATP event.
"On the walls of the Queen's Club where you've got your pictures of Laver and co., you've also got Margaret Court and Billie Jean King and Chris Evert,” said former Queen’s tournament director Stephen Farrow, on The Sit-Down podcast.
LISTEN: Stephen Farrow on The Sit-Down
"I remember a few years ago seeing a documentary about the Battle of the Sexes and they interviewed Billie Jean King, and she's standing at Queen's.”