The Surrey Championships also known as the Surrey Grass Court Championships and the Surrey County Championships is a defunct

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 played in

Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the historic county of Surrey and since 1965 it has ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, England on outdoor

grass court A grass court is one of the four different types of tennis court on which the sport of tennis, originally known as "lawn tennis", is played. Grass courts are made of grasses in different compositions depending on the tournament. Although grass c ...

s. It ran for 73 editions from 1890 to 1981 and after a period of 18 years re-emerged as the

Surbiton Trophy The Surbiton Trophy is a tennis tournament for male and female professional players played on grass courts. The event was held annually in Surbiton, England, from 1997 through 2008 as part of the ATP Challenger Series and ITF Women's Circuit. In ...

History

The Surrey Championships was first staged in 1890 and was an amateur tournament until the open era of tennis considered an important warm-up event to the

Wimbledon championships The Wimbledon Championships, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, All England Club in ...

and the ''first big opener of the grass court season'' it attracted many former British and foreign Grand Slam champions post open era the tournament was part of the men's

Grand Prix Tour The Grand Prix tennis circuit was a professional tennis tour for male players that existed from 1970 to 1989. The Grand Prix and World Championship Tennis (WCT) were the two predecessors to the current tour for male players, the ATP Tour, with t ...

in 1974 and from 1979 to 1980. During the 1975 Championships the tournament witnessed the longest single game in tennis history, during a match between

Keith Glass Keith Robert Glass (born 17 September 1946) is an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist, musical theatre actor, record label owner, producer and journalist. In April 1967 he formed a soul music group, Cam-Pact, which released fou ...

and

Anthony Fawcett Anthony Paul Fawcett (born 1948) is a British writer, art critic, and a former personal assistant to John Lennon and Yoko Ono from 1968 until 1970. He took over the role briefly held by Lennon's boyhood friend Peter Shotton, after Shotton's re ...

– the game was not timed but it contained 37 deuces. The men's championships moved to a northern venue in 1981. In 1997 the tournament was first revived as an exhibition tournament won by

Jason Stoltenberg Jason Stoltenberg (born 4 April 1970) is an Australian former professional tennis player. Tennis career Stoltenberg began playing tennis at age ten on an antbed (crushed termite mound) court where his father owned a cotton farm in the Far Wes ...

. Then in 1998 the former Surrey Championships was restored with a new name known as the

Champions

Notes: Challenge round: The final round of a tournament, in which the winner of a single-elimination phase faces the previous year's champion, who plays only that one match. The challenge round was used in the early history of tennis (from 1877 through 1921) in some tournaments, but not all. (c) Indicates challenger

Men's singles

Men's doubles

Women's singles

*Note: The 1898 to 1900 events (*) were "closed" tournaments that were restricted to county team members only.

Notes

References

External links

https://app.thetennisbase.com/Surrey Championships Roll of Honourhttp://www.tennisarchives.com/Surrey Championships Roll of Honour
{{DEFAULTSORT:Surbiton Grand Prix tennis circuit Grass court tennis tournaments Tennis tournaments in England ATP Tour 1890 establishments in England Recurring sporting events established in 1890 1981 disestablishments in England Sport in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Recurring events disestablished in 1980 Defunct tennis tournaments in the United Kingdom