The Manchester Open (formerly the Northern Tennis Tournament) was a grass court tennis tournament on the ATP Tour held at the Northern Lawn Tennis Club, in the Didsbury suburb of Manchester, Great Britain. The tournament had been held annually since 1880 (with a few disruptions) and was known originally as the Northern Lawn Tennis Championships, Northern Tennis Tournament or Manchester Trophy. Until the end of the 1920s the location of the tournament alternated between Manchester and Liverpool. Between 1970 and 1989 it was part of the men's Grand Prix Tennis Tour known throughout the 1980s as the Greater Manchester Grass Court Tennis Championships. In 1990 it became an ATP Tour event as part of the ATP International Series until 1994. In 1995 the tournament was moved to Nottingham and continued as an ATP World Series event. The current Manchester Trophy is now part of the ATP Challenger Tour; throughout its history the event has been won by a number of Wimbledon champions such as Pete Sampras, who won his first ever grass court title there. The tournament ended in 2009.
Famous quotes containing the words manchester and/or open:
“The [nineteenth-century] young men who were Puritans in politics were anti-Puritans in literature. They were willing to die for the independence of Poland or the Manchester Fenians; and they relaxed their tension by voluptuous reading in Swinburne.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.
Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)