The Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club is a
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 ...
complex in
Eastbourne
Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...
, United Kingdom. The complex is the host of the annual
ATP and
WTA Tour
The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour.
WTA Tour tou ...
tournament called the
Eastbourne International
The Eastbourne International is a tennis tournament on the WTA Tour and the ATP Tour held at the Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club, Eastbourne, United Kingdom. Held since 1974, it is classified as a WTA 500 series on the WTA Tour and an ATP Tour 2 ...
.
The stadium court has a capacity of 8,000 people. The Devonshire Park, originally intended as a cricket ground, opened its gates to the public on 1 July 1874 and in 1879, the first tennis courts was marked out
on its lawns. In 1877 the
All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club set about regularising the laws of lawn tennis and produced its
first tournament at Wimbledon running from July 9–16 of that year. In 1881 the club staged the inaugural
South of England Championships
The South of England Championships, also known as the South of England Open Championships, was an outdoor tennis event held on grass courts at the Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club in Eastbourne, United Kingdom from 1881 until 1972.
History
The ...
, the event was played annually for 136 years until 1972.
In June 2016 the
Lawn Tennis Association
The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is the national governing body of tennis in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
Founded in 1888, the LTA promotes all levels of lawn tennis. It believes that tennis can provide "physica ...
(LTA) and the Eastbourne council announced a £44m project to upgrade the park including a show court and new practice courts.
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Other Uses
Football
In 1881, Devonshire Park Football Club, now known as Eastbourne Town first played here on 26 October 1881, having failed to secure a site near to Guildredge Park, the Devonshire Park company agreed the club to use the facilities alongside the cricket club and the tennis.The Saffrons
The Saffrons is a multi-purpose sports ground in Eastbourne, East Sussex. The ground is home to Eastbourne Cricket Club, Eastbourne Town Football Club, Eastbourne Hockey Club and Compton Croquet Club. There is also a sand dressed astroturf pitch ...
nearby.
Gallery
File:Devonshire Park, Eastbourne (47979534176).jpg, Devonshire Park in May 2019
File:Devonshire Park Tennis Court - geograph.org.uk - 147300.jpg, Centre court in April 2006
File:2014 Aegon International 063 (14250345367).jpg, Crowd at Devonshire Park during the 2014 Aegon International
File:Devonshire Park in September 2021.jpg, Devonshire Park in September 2021
See also
* List of tennis stadiums by capacity
The following is a list of notable tennis stadiums by capacity, that is the maximum number of spectators they can regularly accommodate.
Notes:
* Stadiums ordered by their capacity (if equal, by the first stadium to reach the capacity)
* Some o ...
External links
Official site
References
Roller Skates and Rackets: EBC 1999
Tennis venues in England
Sport in Eastbourne
Tennis clubs
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