Queen's Club

The Queen's Club is a private sporting club in West Kensington, London, England. Founded in 1886, the Queen's Club was the world's first multipurpose sports complex and named after Queen Victoria, its first patron. The club hosts the prestigious annual Queen's Club Championships grass court men's lawn tennis tournament. It has 28 outdoor courts (around half of which are reputedly some of the best grass courts in the world) and eight indoor. With two courts, it is also the national headquarters of real tennis, hosting the British Open every year. The Queen's Club also has rackets, and squash courts, of which it now has become the headquarters for these sports due to the Prince's Club closure in 1940.

It was also the Jeu de paume (real tennis) venue of the 1908 Summer Olympics.

Until 1922, the club was the main ground for the football games of Corinthian F.C. One international was held, England drawing 1-1 with Wales on March 18 1895.

On September 13, 2005, the Lawn Tennis Association, the governing body of British lawn tennis, put the Queen's Club up for sale. The LTA owned Queen's since 1953. The terms required that the rackets club and the Artois Championships (formerly the Stella Artois Championships) remain unaffected. On March 8, 2006, the LTA announced that it would sell to club members for £45 million, ending seven months of uncertainty about the club's future. [cite web| url=http://www.uscourttennis.com/Archived%20stories/QueensClubSale.htm| title=London's Queen's Club Sold to Members for 45 Million Pounds| author=Bloomberg| accessmonthday=April 25 | accessyear=2006| ] However some members disputed the LTA's right to sell the club, which they contested it merely held in trust on their behalf, and began to raise funds to dispute the sale in court. In late 2006 the two sides reached an out of court settlement in which the sale price was reduced to £35 million. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/6181177.stm LTA sells Queen's Club for £35m] , "bbc.co.uk, 14 December 2006.]

In February 2007, the LTA relocated its headquarters from Queen's Club to the new National Tennis Centre in Roehampton. The Artois Championships still remains one of the four most prestigious grass competitions on the men's ATP tour along with the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, Germany, the Red Letter Days Open in Nottingham and of course Wimbledon.

References

ee also

* Queen's Club Championships (Artois Championships for sponsorship reasons) Queen's tennis tournament
* All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club — London's other famous tennis club
* Prince's Club

External links

* [http://www.queensclub.co.uk The Queen's Club]
* [http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=524334&y=178102&z=1&sv=524250,178250&st=4&ar=Y&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf Street map]