The Cromer Covered Courts Championships or simply the Cromer Covered Courts was an open men's and women's international indoor

Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

tournament founded in 1925. The tournament featured two editions, one was held in the autumn first known as the Cromer Covered Courts Autumn Meeting and the other in the spring. The tournaments were organised by the Cromer Covered Courts Club and held at the indoor courts at Newhaven Court,

Cromer Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the North Norfolk district of the county of Norfolk, England. It is north of Norwich, northwest of North Walsham and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline. The local ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, England. The event ran until 1965.

History

The Cromer Covered Courts was an open men's and women's international indoor

clay court A clay court is one of the types of tennis court on which the sport of tennis is played. Clay courts are built on a foundation of crushed stone, brick, shale, and other construction aggregate, aggregate, with a thin layer of fine clay particles ...

tournament founded in 1925. The tournament featured two editions of the event. The first was held in the autumn usually in October or November, this event being the oldest of the two was known as the ''Cromer Covered Courts Autumn Meeting''. The second edition was started in 1934 was usually held in the spring in April. In January 1963 the Newhaven Court Hotel was destroyed by a fire. Two years later in 1965 after the blaze that destroyed the hotel, another fire destroyed the covered tennis courts in the grounds. Previous winners of the men's singles at the Cromer covered courts spring meeting included;

Mohammed Sleem Mohammed Sleem (14 January 1892 – around 1980) was a tennis player and lawyer who represented India at the Davis Cup and Olympic Games. He competed in the singles event at the 1924 Summer Olympics, reaching the third round in which he lost to ...

Murray Deloford Murray Don Deloford (15 June 1916 – 12 February 1981) was a British tennis player. Deloford, a London native, had his best period on tour in the late 1930s, winning the Scottish Championships, Irish Championships and Kent Championships amon ...

Ignacy Tłoczyński Ignacy Tłoczyński (; 14 July 1911 – 25 December 2000) was a Polish tennis player, coach and World War II veteran. Tłoczyński participated in 10 Davis Cup ties for Poland Davis Cup team, Poland from 1930–1939, posting a 23–8 record in ...

Eric Filby Eric John Filby (31 May 1917 – 9 December 2004) was a male English international table tennis and lawn tennis player. He won a bronze medal at the 1938 World Table Tennis Championships in the men's doubles with Hyman Lurie. In 1950 he mov ...

and

Dieter Schultheiss Dieter or dieter may refer to: * A person committed to dieting People Dieter is a German given name, a short form of Dietrich, from ''theod+ric'' "people ruler", see Theodoric. Rarely, it is a German form of the given name Theodore. Given ...

Past winners of the covered courts autumn meeting included;

Henry Mayes Henry George Mayes, MBE (14 February 1880 – 1928) was a British-Canadian tennis player, military figure and businessman. He was a quarter finalist at the 1920 World Covered Court Championships, and the 1921 Wimbledon Championships. He wa ...

Fred Perry Frederick John Perry (18 May 1909 – 2 February 1995) was a British tennis and table tennis player and former World number 1 male tennis player rankings, world No. 1 from England who won 10 Majors, including eight Grand Slam (tennis), ...

Ted Avory Edward Raymond Avory (21 June 1909 – 26 October 1995) was a British tennis player. Born in London, Avory was educated at Stowe School. He was a great-nephew of High Court judge Sir Horace Avory. Most active in tennis during the 1930s, he made ...

, Don Butler, Jack Harper,

George Godsell George Edward Godsell (26 April 1907 – 1 May 1953) was a British tennis player. Based in Gloucestershire, Godsell was active from the 1930s to early 1950s. Locally he won the singles title at Cheltenham four times and he was also a winner of t ...

and

Władysław Skonecki Wladyslaw Skonecki (13 July 1920 – 12 June 1983) was a Polish tennis player. He was a Polish Champion, two-time winner of Monte Carlo Championships and represented the country in Davis Cup. Career Skonecki was born in Tomsk, in the Soviet Uni ...

Venue

The Cromer Lawn Tennis Club was founded in 1907 and twelve grass courts were laid down on land adjacent to Norwich Road, Cromer. In 1908 the club staged its first open tournament. In August 1919 the club became the venue for the resumed

Norfolk Championships The Norfolk Championships also known as the Norfolk County Lawn Tennis Championships was a combined men's and women's grass court tournament originally founded in 1906. It was held in multiple locations such as Norwich, Great Yarmouth, and Cromer ...

. In 1925 the club had constructed two indoor courts built at Newhaven Court at a cost of £10,000 (or £777,823.40 today). In 1926 some events of the Norfolk championships were transferred indoors due to severe rain delays. The club is still operating today.Cromer Tennis & Squash Club

References

{{Reflist Clay court tennis tournaments Defunct tennis tournaments in the United Kingdom Indoor tennis tournaments