There was a time, in the not so distant past, that three of the four grand slam tournaments were contested on grass. On July 2, 2018, the only slam still played on grass will commence at the All England Club. At the level below the grand slams, incredulously, there still are no grass court events on either tour. As the Wimbledon fortnight approaches, the history of lawn tennis beckons.

In the United States in 1874, grass court tennis blossomed on the estate of Col. William Appleton in Nahant, MA. The inaugural lawn tennis championships at Wimbledon was contested by twenty-two men in 1877 to raise revenue for the club.

In 1878 it was officially recognized as the British Championships though it remained open to international players. In 1884, women were first permitted to compete at Wimbledon.

The cradle of American lawn tennis was the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club in New York and in 1880, hosted the first American national tournament.

In 1881, the first U. S. National Championships - now the US Open - was played on the lawns of the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island, the site of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum. In 1887, the women first played for the national championship at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Philadelphia, PA.

Since each club maintained its own rules, the U. S. National Lawn Tennis Association - now the USTA-was established in 1881 to standardize the rules and organize tournaments.

In 1915, the U. S. National Championships relocated from Newport, RI to the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York. Between 1921 and 1923, the men’s and women’s events were played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia. In 1924, it was officially recognized by the International Lawn Tennis Federation as one of the four majors.

It remained a grass court tournament thru 1975 and the following year, was first contested on clay. In 1978, the US Open underwent two significant changes; the event moved to Flushing Meadows Park in Corona, Queens and the surface became hard, deco turf.

The Australian Open was first played in 1905 and was known as the Australasian Championships thru 1926. It too was officially recognized in 1924 as one of the majors but due to its remote location and place on the calendar (December), many of the top players failed to participate.

Once the tournament was moved to January in 1987 and became the first, not the last grand slam of the season, participation steadily improved. In addition to the calendar change, the surface changed too.

The Australian Open was last contested on grass in 1987 and the following season was played on hard rebound ace and since 2008, on hard plexicushion.

Currently, the professional grass court season is brief with only six tournaments on the ATP and five on the WTA tour preceding Wimbledon. In 2015, an extra week was added between the conclusion of the French Open and the start of Wimbledon. Consequently, players had additional time to adapt to the grass by entering newly established tour events.

In 2015, the Stuttgart Open, a 250 level event on the ATP tour, changed from outdoor clay to grass and is scheduled during the first week of the grass court season. The WTA tour heads to Nottingham, United Kingdom for the Nottingham Open, an International level event. In addition, the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships brings the two tours together during that first week of lawn tennis.

Week two finds the men competing at one of two, 500 level events: Halle or Queens Club while the women compete in either the Birmingham Classic or the Mallorca Open which was added to the calendar in 2016.

The tours once again reunite at the Eastbourne International, one of the final tune-up events prior to Wimbledon. Last season, a new event on the ATP tour at the 250 level in Antalya, Turkey was scheduled the week before Wimbledon.    

The only grass court event played after Wimbledon and in the United States is the Dell Tennis Hall of Fame Open, an ATP 250 level tournament played on the historic lawns in Newport, Rhode Island.

The tournament begins on July 16th and boasts an impressive field including world no. 10 and three-time and defending champion John Isner.  The magnificent Newport Casino is a national historic landmark and treasured repository of the game’s storied past. Players, fans and the media are transported back in time when lawn tennis in the US was the rule-not the exception.

Long gone are events played at the Longwood Cricket Club, Germantown Cricket Club, Westchester Country Club and the Orange Lawn Tennis Club.

For those who relish and revere lawn tennis, the six-week grass court season may be too short, but it is more than sweet.