Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin
The Horseshoe court at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, which opened …
Visitors can get all those feels in Newport, Rhode Island, home to one of the oldest lawn tennis sites in the world (yes, even older than Wimbledon’s current home).
What is now the International Tennis Hall of Fame opened in 1880—only three years after Wimbledon held its first championships, but Wimbledon later moved to its current location in 1922—as the Newport Casino. Located on seven acres along Bellevue Avenue amidst some of the most noteworthy Gilded Age mansions Newport had to offer, lawn tennis intertwined with the upper class of the day.
Now over a century later, the International Tennis Hall of Fame sits alongside historic mansions, both preserved to give lawn tennis fans a real destination to enjoy all things gilded grass.
“I think it is incredible,” Nicole Markham, curator of collections at the International Tennis Hall of Fame, tells me about the link between the societal history of Newport and lawn tennis. “They go hand in hand.”
