The Los Angeles Tennis Club (LATC) is a private tennis club established in 1920 at 5851 Clinton Street, between Wilcox and Rossmore, one block south of Melrose Avenue.
From the 1930s through the early 1950s, it was the center of development of world-class players in the United States. Perry T. Jones, president of the Southern California Tennis Association and the director of the Pacific Southwest Championships, had his office there and for many years was instrumental in the development of such players as Jack Kramer. Kramer writes in his autobiography that "if you wanted competition, you had to play there — especially since there were many fewer tournaments then and practice was the vogue." Jones was a strong-willed autocrat who excluded the young Pancho Gonzales from the club because of his school truancy and who achieved notoriety for later excluding a 12-year-old Billie Jean King from a group photo at the club because she was wearing shorts instead of a tennis dress.[1]
When he was still a teenage player, Kramer writes, he could "get matches against Ellsworth Vines, Bill Tilden, Bobby Riggs, Gene Mako, Joe Hunt, Ted Schroeder, Jack Tidball, Frank Shields, and -- often as not -- the players on the UCLA and University of Southern California teams. Sidney Wood would come in for long periods from the East, and Frank Kovacs from Northern California." "Big Bill" Tilden, the dominant player of the 1920s and still the leading gate attraction of the 1930s, was a Philadelphian who spent much of his time in Los Angeles and at the LATC, playing matches in the morning and bridge in the afternoons.
In 1952, Angela Buxton, who four years later was the champion in doubles at both Wimbledon and the French Championships, ran into anti-Semitism at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. She said, "They told me I couldn't play because I was Jewish." Instead, she was forced to train across town at public courts, but this allowed her to practice under the watchful eye of the great Bill Tilden for six months.[2][3]
For five decades, the Pacific Southwest Championships, open only to amateurs and played at the LATC, was the second or third most prestigious American tennis tournament. In preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics, Leonard Strauss, an LATC member and Chairman of Thrifty Drug Stores, spearheaded construction of a new 5,800 seat tennis stadium on the UCLA campus, which now hosts Southern California's major annual professional tennis event.
Today
The LATC remains an important recreational and community resource for Los Angeles and its Hancock Park community. Owned by 330 equity members, the LATC provides 17 tennis courts along with pool, gym, dining, and bar facilities to its 400 members and their families and guests. The LATC continues to host several charity, amateur, and collegiate tournaments and is a practice venue for the Loyola High and Marlborough School tennis teams.
References
- ^ W.S. (September 2006). "A Clear Signal That Everything's Not For Sale". Inside Tennis. http://www.insidetennis.com/archive/0906_king.html. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
- ^ Slater, Robert. 2000. Great Jews in Sports. New York: Jonathan David Publishers.
- ^ Postal, Bernard; Silver, Jesse; Silver, Roy. 1965. Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports. New York: Bloch Publishing.
External links
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