Longwood Cricket Club

Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts · birthplace of the Davis Cup

Newton, Massachusetts, United States · Members club

No. 3, World's Greatest Grass Clubs No. 26, Innovative Grass Clubs

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No. 26, Innovative Grass Clubs

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A Boston cricket club that became the home of American doubles on grass.

Location: Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, outside Boston
Founded: 1877, as a cricket club; first lawn tennis court 1878; at Chestnut Hill since 1922
Grass courts: 25, alongside 19 Har-Tru clay courts
On the grass: The first Davis Cup tie, 1900; the US national doubles championships, 1917 to 1967 with breaks
Also: The US Pro Championships, 1964 to 1999
Other courts: 19 clay
Season: Members
Address: 564 Hammond Street, Newton, Massachusetts, 02467, United States

Why it is special

Longwood began in 1877 as a cricket club on the Longwood estate outside Boston, on land given by the Sears family, and laid its first lawn tennis court the following year. Richard Sears, who won the first seven US national singles titles, became a member, and James Dwight, regarded by the 1880s as the father of American lawn tennis, won the club’s Longwood Bowl in 1884. The club moved to its present grounds at Chestnut Hill in 1922.

In August 1900 a Harvard student and member, Dwight Davis, brought a British team to Longwood for a new international contest. The United States won 3-0 in front of about 1,200 spectators, and the trophy Davis donated became the Davis Cup. The club staged fourteen more ties, the last in 1999.

From 1917 Longwood was for most of half a century the home of the US national doubles championships on grass, and in 1968 Arthur Ashe won the national amateur championship here. The US Pro Championships followed from 1964 to 1999; Rod Laver won the singles five times on its lawns. Today the club keeps twenty-five grass courts, mostly of poa annua and bentgrass, open from late May until early November beside nineteen clay courts.

Champions here, 1936 to 1949

Year	Men's singles	Women's singles
1936	Frank Parker	Alice Marble
1937	Wilmer Allison	Marjorie Gladman Van Ryn
1938	Bobby Riggs	Helen Bernhard
1939	Adrian Quist	Helen Bernhard
1942	Pancho Segura	Louise Brough
1944	Not on the roll	Pauline Betz Addie
1945	Not on the roll	Pauline Betz Addie
1946	Not on the roll	Louise Brough
1948	Not on the roll	Magda Berescu Rurac
1949	Not on the roll	Betty Hilton

Every champion on the roll: Longwood Bowl

About the club

Longwood Cricket Club in Newton, Massachusetts, is built around 25 grass courts and 19 clay courts in a pastoral setting. One of the oldest tennis clubs in the world, it began moving from cricket to tennis when it laid its first lawn tennis court in 1878.

Its early members included several pioneers of the American game: R. D. Sears, champion at what is now the US Open for seven consecutive years; Dwight Davis, founder of the Davis Cup; and James Dwight, known as the father of American tennis.