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The Los Angeles Tennis Club (LATC) is a private tennis club opened in 1920 that was the host of the Pacific Southwest Championships from 1927 until 1974 and 1980 until 1983. It is located at 5851 Clinton Street, between Wilcox and Rossmore, one block south of Melrose Avenue. It is currently the home of the Southern California Championships.
The club was founded in 1920 and Thomas C. Bundy was elected as its first president. [1]
Perry T. Jones was a major fundraiser and took control of Southern California tennis in 1930. He set up his office at the Club with his loyal Secretary, Doris Cooke, and made it famous through his junior development patrons network. It reached from Santa Barbara to San Diego and came together at the LATC to produce a steady stream of world-class tennis players. dubbed "the cradle of tennis." Jones believed in schooling, cleanliness, proper attire, and sportsmanship when helping players develop into champions. He became Davis Cup Captain in 1958, recruited, mentored, and named Alex Olmedo to the team, that included Barry MacKay and Ham Richardson, and won the Davis Cup from Australia, that year. Jack Kramer and Pancho Gonzales acted as advisors to Jones. Jones was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1970. He established the Southern California Tennis Association (SCTA) Hall of Fame in 1968, and was known as "Mr. Tennis of the West Coast".
From the 1930s through the early 1970s, the LATC was the center of development for world-class players in the United States. In 1930, Perry T. Jones, became President of the Southern California Tennis Association and the Director of the Southern California Championships and Pacific Southwest Tennis Championships. Bill Tilden was the first winner of the Pacific Southwest tournament in 1927. Jones designed what he termed "The Factory System" that utilized Tennis Patrons in San Diego, Long Beach, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica, such as: Harper Ink, Charles Lane, Dr. Ben Parks, Jack Lynch, Bob Martin, and Helen Roark; and Tennis Teachers: Mercer Beasley, Esther Bartosh, Ben Press, Clyde Walker, Wilbur Folsom, Dick Skeen, Pancho Segura, Carl Earn, Eleanor Tennant, Linda Crosby, Vic Braden, Myron McNamara, and Robert Lansdorp to identify and funnel top-flight junior players to his attention, so he could make them champions with funding, top competition, and tournaments, such as: Ellsworth Vines, Gene Mako, Jack Tidball, Jack Kramer, Joe Hunt, Pauline Betz, Bobby Riggs, Bob Falkenburg, Pancho Gonzales, Ted Schroeder, Joe Hunt, Dave Freeman, Budge Patty, Dodo Cheney, Herb Flam, Hugh Stewart, Pat Yeomans, Gussie Moran, Louise Brough, Maureen Connolly, Beverly Baker, Alex Olmedo, Darlene Hard, Billie Jean King, Sally Moore, Karen Hantze, Mike Franks, Bill Bond, Rafael Osuna, Dennis Ralston, Jon Douglas, Allen Fox, Stan Smith, Charlie Pasarell, Bob Lutz, and many others. Jack Kramer writes in his autobiography in 1979, that "if you wanted top competition, you had to play at the LATC — 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. He sometimes would not sponsor Bobby Riggs for Eastern Tournaments. He also achieved notoriety for 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. [2]
In 1952, Angela Buxton, who in 1956 won competitions at Wimbledon and the French Championships, encountered anti-Semitism at the club. "They told me I couldn't play because I was Jewish," she said. She trained elsewhere, and had the opportunity to work with Bill Tilden. [3] [4]
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. George Toley won 10 NCAA Team Titles as Coach of USC, and was the Teaching Professional at the Club. 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 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 afternoon.
For five decades, the Pacific Southwest Championships, open only to amateurs until 1968, and played at the LATC, was the second most prestigious American tennis tournament after the US Championships in New York. 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 then hosted Southern California's major annual professional tennis event, the Pacific Southwest.
The LATC remains an important tournament, recreation, and community resource for Los Angeles and its Hancock Park community. Owned by 360 equity members, the LATC provides 16 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 amateur, collegiate, and charity tournaments. It is a practice venue for the Loyola High and Marlborough School tennis teams.
As of 2017 the fee for new equity memberships is $25,000, not including quarterly and monthly dues, and new applicants undergo a lengthy acceptance process that can take several months and require direct approval of the Board. [5]
John Donald Budge was an American tennis player. He is most famous as the first tennis player — male or female, and still the only American male — to win the Grand Slam, and to win all four Grand Slam events consecutively overall. Budge was the second man to complete the career Grand Slam after Fred Perry, and remains the youngest to achieve the feat. He won ten majors, of which six were Grand Slam events and four Pro Slams, the latter achieved on three different surfaces. Budge is considered to have one of the best backhands in the history of tennis, with most observers rating it better than that of later player Ken Rosewall.
Frederick John Perry was a British tennis and table tennis player and former world No. 1 from England who won 10 Majors including eight Grand Slam tournaments and two Pro Slams single titles, as well as six Major doubles titles. Perry won three consecutive Wimbledon Championships from 1934 to 1936 and was World Amateur number one tennis player during those three years. Prior to Andy Murray in 2013, Perry was the last British player to win the men's Wimbledon championship, in 1936, and the last British player to win a men's singles Grand Slam title, until Andy Murray won the 2012 US Open. Perry remains the last English player to win a men's singles Grand Slam title.
Ricardo Alonso "Pancho" González, known sometimes as Richard Gonzales, was an American tennis player. He won 15 major singles titles, including two U.S. National Singles Championships in 1948 and 1949, and 13 Professional Grand Slam titles. He also won three Tournament of Champions professional events in 1957, 1958, and 1959. He was ranked world amateur No. 1 in 1948 by Ned Potter and in 1949 by Potter and John Olliff. Gonzales was a prominent professional champion in the 1950s and 1960s, winning world professional championship tours between 1954 and 1961; he was the world number one ranked male tennis player professional between 1952 and 1961. Gonzales was a determined competitor with a fierce temper. He was often at odds with officials and promoters. However, he was a fan favorite who drew many spectators.
Francisco Olegario Segura, better known as Pancho "Segoo" Segura, was a leading tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s, both as an amateur and as a professional. He was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, but moved to the United States in the late 1930s. Throughout his amateur career he was listed by the USTA as a "foreign" player resident in the U.S. As a professional player, he was referred to as the "Ecuadorian champ who now lives in New York City". After acquiring U.S. citizenship in 1991 at the age of seventy, Segura was a citizen of both countries, although he never represented the U.S. in tennis competition.
John Albert Kramer was an American tennis player of the 1940s and 1950s. He won three Grand Slam tournaments. He led the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team to victory in the 1946 and 1947 Davis Cup finals. Kramer won the U.S. Pro Championship at Forest Hills in 1948 and the Wembley Pro Championships in 1949. He won world professional championship 2-man tours in 1948, 1949/50, 1950/51, and 1953. He was ranked world No. 1 amateur player for 1946 by Pierre Gillou, Harry Hopman and Ned Potter. He was ranked World No. 1 amateur player for 1947 by John Olliff, Pierre Gillou and Ned Potter. In 1948 he was ranked the U.S. No. 1 professional in the USPLTA contemporary rankings for U.S. pro tennis play.
Henry Ellsworth Vines Jr. was an American tennis champion of the 1930s, the World No. 1 player or the co-No. 1 in 1932, 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937, able to win Pro Slam titles on three different surfaces. He later became a professional golfer and reached the semifinals of the PGA Championship in 1951.
William Tatem Tilden II, nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American tennis player. Tilden was the world No. 1 amateur for six consecutive years, from 1920 to 1925, and was ranked as the world No. 1 professional by Ray Bowers in 1931 and 1932 and Ellsworth Vines in 1933. He won 14 Major singles titles, including 10 Grand Slam events, one World Hard Court Championships and three professional majors. He was the first American man to win Wimbledon, taking the title in 1920. He also won a joint-record seven U.S. Championships titles.
Stanley Roger Smith is an American former professional tennis player. Smith is best known to non-tennis players as the namesake of a popular brand of tennis shoes. A world No. 1 player and two-time major singles champion, Smith also paired with Bob Lutz to create one of the most successful doubles teams of all-time. In 1970, Smith won the inaugural year-end championships title. In 1972, he was the year-end world No. 1 singles player. In 1973, he won his second and last year end championship title at the Dallas WCT Finals. In addition, he won four Grand Prix Championship Series titles. In his early years he improved his tennis game through lessons from Pancho Segura, the Pasadena Tennis Patrons, and the sponsorship of the Southern California Tennis Association headed by Perry T. Jones. Since 2011, Smith has served as President of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
John Herbert Crawford, was an Australian tennis player during the 1930s. He was the World No. 1 amateur for 1933, during which year he won the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon, and was runner-up at the U.S. Open in five sets, thus missing the Grand Slam by one set that year. He also won the Australian Open in 1931, 1932, and 1935. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1979.
Marion Anthony Trabert was an American amateur world No. 1 tennis champion and long-time tennis author, TV commentator, instructor, and motivational speaker.
Richard Edgar Skeen was an American professional tennis player and teacher. He was runner-up to Fred Perry in the Men's Singles in the 1941 U.S. Pro Tennis Championships, reaching as high as World No. 2 pro that year according to Ray Bowers. Skeen reached the semifinals of other tournaments on four occasions that year. Bill Tilden recommended Dick as an outstanding Tennis Teacher in California in his 1950 book, 'How to Play Better Tennis'.
Frank Kovacs was an American amateur and professional tennis player in the mid-20th century. He won the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships singles title in 1941. He won the World Professional Championships tournament in 1945 in San Francisco. Kovacs was successful on clay and won the Great Lakes Professional Clay Court Championships near Chicago in 1946, defeating Riggs in the final, and five U.S. Professional Clay Court Championships from 1948 to 1953. Kovacs won the International Professional Championships or U.S. Professional Championships at Cleveland in 1951. He also won the U.S. Professional Challenge Tour in 1947 against Bobby Riggs.
Serve-and-volley is a style of play in tennis where the player serving moves quickly towards the net after hitting a serve, to attempt to hit a volley afterwards. In the serve-and-volley playstyle, the server attempts to hit a volley, as opposed to the baseline game, where the server stays back following the serve and attempts to hit a groundstroke. The serve-and-volley style of play has diminished in recent years with advances in racquet and string technologies which allow players to generate a great amount of top spin on groundstrokes and passing shots. The slowing of court surfaces and deflation of balls, promoting longer rallies for the enjoyment of spectators, has also devalued the serve-and-volley style.
Frederick Rudolph "Ted" Schroeder was an American tennis player who won the two most prestigious amateur tennis titles, Wimbledon and the U.S. National. He was the No. 1-ranked American amateur player in 1942; the No. 2 for 4 consecutive years, 1946 through 1949, and the latter year saw Schroeder ranked World No. 1 amateur by Pierre Gillou. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, but developed as a tennis player in Southern California under the guidance of Perry T. Jones.
Robert Larimore Riggs was an American tennis champion who was the World No. 1 amateur in 1939 and World No. 1 professional in 1946 and 1947. He played his first professional tennis match on December 26, 1941.
The Los Angeles Open was a former tennis tournament held in Los Angeles, United States from 1927 until 2012. It included a women's draw until 1974 when Linda Lewis won the last ladies title. Subsequently, it became a men-only event and integrated into the ATP's professional tennis circuit. The inaugural edition of the event, known as the Pacific Southwest Championships, was organized by Perry T. Jones and held at the Los Angeles Tennis Club (LATC) starting in October 1927. Bill Tilden and Kea Bouman were the first singles champions. The tournament quickly became a prestigious event on the tennis calendar.
The Gonzales–Rosewall rivalry was a tennis rivalry between Pancho Gonzales and Ken Rosewall, widely regarded as two of the greatest tennis players of all time. This rivalry featured some of the most acclaimed matches in tennis history, and was the most prolific tennis rivalry of all time.
Carl Earn was an American tennis player who competed on the amateur and professional circuits in the 1940s and 1950s. He reached as high as world No. 7 in the professional ranks in 1946.
Perry T. Jones was an amateur tennis official who was a major fundraiser for the Los Angeles Tennis Club and its tournaments. He took control of Southern California Tennis in 1930s and ran the Pacific Southwest Championships, the second most prestigious tournament after the U.S. Championships. He became one of the most powerful officials in tennis because most of the good players were developed in Southern California.
USTA Southern California, formerly known as the Southern California Tennis Association, is one of 17 sections that make up the United States Tennis Association. Each non-profit section represents various geographic locations around North America with the goal to support players and promote the growth of tennis across the United States. USTA Southern California has 40,000 members and more than 2,000 member organizations or tennis facilities. It consists of a staff of 32 and is headquartered on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles in Westwood, California, home of the Los Angeles Tennis Center. Currently, Southern California's top junior tennis players train in Carson, California, the home to the USTA Training Center – West. The Southern California section includes areas from the coast of San Diego to the south to the Central Coast to the north extending to San Luis Obispo County, east to Bakersfield, and including the Inland Empire and the Coachella Valley. USTA Southern California works with various organizations such as the City of Angels to provide free adaptive and wheelchair tennis lessons throughout Southern California. Southern California resident Brad Parks is largely credited with starting the sport of wheelchair tennis in the mid-1970s after suffering a skiing accident.
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