Hawke's Bay Lawn Tennis Club

It is simply not possible to talk about the inception and growth of organised tennis in New Zealand without mention of the Hawke's Bay Lawn Tennis Club.    Auckland, Christchurch and Napier became the dominating centres for lawn tennis following it's introduction in the late 1870's and of the three, Napier (represented by the Hawke's Bay Lawn Tennis Club) has the most impressive record of initaive and enterprise.  Not only did it hold the first open tournament in the country, it also held the first recognised New Zealand championships which prompted the formation of the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association with headquarters in Napier.

The first records of club tennis in NZ appear around the early 1880's in Christchurch and Dunedin and so by 1884 a small group of Napier enthusiasts led by Mr Frank Logan (first Club President) pull together to form the H.B.L.T C. with temporary grounds being found at Farndon Park, Clive.  The reasons for chosen grounds being so far outside Napier are not recorded but is is likely that time and expense where the deciding factors.  Farndon was already flat parkland and easily adaptable for  the use of lawn tennis.  Those courts at Farndon gave so much to the development of lawn tennis in this country, hosting no less than three New Zealand championships but the inconvenience of being so far from Napier would compel the club to relocate to a smaller site on Lambton Road (Hospital Hill) sometime between 1895-1899