Rot-Weiss Berlin

Rot-Weiss was founded in 1897 and moved to its site in the Grunewald forest in 1906. Between 1927 and 1939 it supplied almost the entire German Davis Cup team, and 28 Davis Cup ties have been played here, more than at any other German venue. After the grounds were destroyed in 1943, Gottfried von Cramm, three times a Wimbledon finalist, twice against Fred Perry, led the revival and was president from 1958 until his death in 1976.

For a century it was a clay club: Steffi Graf, a member since 1984, won the German Open here nine times. In 2020 the stadium named after her was laid with grass for a new WTA event. The pandemic cancelled that year’s tournament, so the first grass matches were an exhibition that July, and the first professional grass event followed in 2021.

Rot-Weiss shows how the continental grass season has grown. A club whose history was written on clay now prepares three grass courts each June, and Berlin has become a grass-court city for the first time.