The All India Hard Court Championships, also known as the All India Hard Court Tennis Championships, was a combined men's and women's

clay court A clay court is one of the types of tennis court on which the sport of tennis, originally known as "lawn tennis", is played. Clay courts are made of crushed stone, brick, shale, or other unbound mineral aggregate depending on the tournament. ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

tournament founded in 1946. The championships were first played at the

Madras Gymkhana Club The Madras Gymkhana Club (MGC) is a club in Chennai, India, which was founded in 1884 to promote sports and social and cultural activities. It owns and operates one of Chennai's two 18-hole golf courses, one of Asia's oldest courses. Tamil Na ...

grounds,

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The championships ran until 1972 before it was discontinued as part of the worldwide tennis circuit.

History

Tennis was introduced to India in 1880s by British Army and Civilian Officers. In 1946 the

All India Tennis Association The All India Tennis Association (AITA) ( hi, अखिल भारतीय टेनिस संघ), is the governing body of tennis in India. It was established in 1920 and affiliated by International Tennis Federation and Asian Tennis Fed ...

established a national level tournament called the All India Hard Court Championships. In 1947, 1955 and 1959 this tournament was held in conjunction with the Western India Championships. The championships were staged until 1972 when they were discontinued as part of the worldwide tennis circuit.

Locations

The championships were staged mainly in

, but also throughout India in different locations such as;

Amaravati Amaravati () is the capital of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located on the banks of the river Krishna in Guntur district. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone at a ceremonial event in Uddandar ...

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

and

Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

References

{{Tennis-stub Defunct tennis tournaments in India Clay court tennis tournaments