Los Angeles Tennis Club

The Los Angeles Tennis Club is a private tennis club that was established in 1920. The LATC is located at 5851 Clinton Street, between Wilcox and Rossmore, one block south of Melrose.

During the 1930s, 1940s, and the early 1950s, it was the center of development of world-class players in the United States. Perry T. Jones, president of the Southern California Tennis Association and the director of the Pacific Southwest Championships, had his office there and for many years was instrumental in the development of such players as Jack Kramer. Kramer writes in his autobiography that "if you wanted competition, you had to play there — 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 and who achieved notoriety for later 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. ["Inside Tennis", September 2006 issue, http://www.insidetennis.com/0906_king.html]

When he was still a teenage player, Kramer writes, he could "get matches against Vines, Tilden, Riggs, Gene Mako, Joe Hunt, Ted Schroeder, Jack Tidball, Frank Shields, and -- often as not -- the players on the UCLA and Southern California teams. Sidney Wood would come in for long periods from the East, and Kovacs from Northern California." "Big Bill" Tilden, the dominant player of the 1920s and still 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 afternoons.

In 1952, Angela Buxton, who four years later was the champion in doubles at both Wimbledon and the French Championships, ran into anti-Semitism at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. She said, "They told me I couldn't play because I was Jewish." Instead, she was forced to train across town at public courts, but this allowed her to practice under the watchful eye of the great Bill Tilden for six months. ["Great Jews in Sports", Robert Slater (New York: Jonathan David Publishers, 2000)] ["Encyclopedia of Jews in Sports", Bernard Postal, Jesse Silver, and Roy Silver (New York: Bloch Publishing Co, 1965)]

For five decades, the Pacific Southwest Championships, open only to amateurs and played at the LATC, was the second or third most prestigious American tennis tournament. In preparation for the 1984 Olympic Games, 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 now hosts Southern California's major annual professional tennis event.

Today

Today, the LATC remains an important recreational and community resource for Los Angeles and its Hancock Park community. Owned by 330 equity members, the LATC provides 17 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 charity, amateur, and collegiate tournaments and is a practice venue for the Loyola and Marlborough high school tennis teams.

Notes