The Tri-State Tournament
Between the years of 1903 and 1968, and with the exception of about 10 years, the Club hosted the popular and well-known tournament known as the Tri-State Tennis Tournament. This event attracted many of the best male and female players from around the country and the world, and the tournament was always one of the major events on the major tennis schedule during the Pre-Open Era.
In 1904 the Cincinnati Enquirer reported: "Such a number of noted tennis players from cities throughout the United States has been entered that the Tri-State Tournament ranks very high, being surpassed in importance only by the National Lawn Tennis Association Tournament at Newport, R.I."
Many great players, both men and women, participated in the tournament. Its list of winners reads like a "Who's Who'" of tennis - Nat Emerson, Beals Wright, Bill Tilden, George Lott, Bobby Riggs, Frank Parker, Bill Talbert, Tony Trabert, Barry MacKay, May Sutton, Alice Marble, Pauline Betz, and Dorothy Bundy, to name but a few.
This tournament eventually would grow into what is now known as the Western & Southern Open. The tournament, now held in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, is the oldest tournament in the nation played in its original city.
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