| Details | |
|---|---|
| Duration | 22 July – 15 September |
| Tournaments | 2 |
| Categories | National (1) Provincial/Regional/State (1) |
| Achievements (singles) | |
| Most titles |  William Henry Darby (1) W. Peebles (1) |
1877 → | |
The1876 men's tennis season consisted of just 2 tournaments. It began on 22 July inDublin, Ireland and ended on 15 September inLimerick, Ireland.
Before the birth ofOpen Era, most tournaments were reserved for amateur athletes. In 1874 British majorWalter Clopton Wingfield patented the invention of a new game, which consists of anhourglass shaped field, divided in the middle by a suspended net. The game was packaged in a box containing some balls, four paddles, the network and the signs to mark the field. The game was based on the rules of the old real tennis and, at the suggestion ofArthur Balfour, was called lawn-tennis. The official date of birth would be February 23, 1874.
This year the world's first two official tennis tournaments for men are held, one theAll Ireland Lawn Tennis Championships organised by the All Ireland Lawn Tennis Club and held at the Champion Ground, Lansdowne, Dublin.[1] The other theSouth of Ireland Championships in Limerick, County Limerick. The following year the tournament would staged the first Open championships in Ireland took place in August 1877, the same year as the first All-England championships of Wimbledon. The event was not held in Dublin but at the Limerick Lawn Tennis Club, putting Limerick in a premier position on the tennis map predatingFitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club by two years.
Notes 1: Challenge Round: the final round of a tournament, in which the winner of a single-elimination phase faces the previous year's champion, who plays only that one match. The challenge round was used in the early history of tennis (from 1877 through 1921),[2] in some tournaments not all.
Key
| Important.[3][4][5][6] |
| National |
| Provincial/State/Regional |
| County |
| Local |
No events
| Date | Tournament | Winner | Finalist | Semifinalist | Quarter finalist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 July.[7] | All Ireland Lawn Tennis Championships All Ireland Lawn Tennis Club Champion Ground Lansdowne,Dublin,Ireland. Grass Singles | W. Peebles ? | J. Forster | ||
No events
| Date | Tournament | Winner | Finalist | Semifinalist | Quarter finalist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 - 15 September.[8] | South of Ireland Championships Limerick, County Limerick, Ireland Grass Singles | William Henry Darby 11-3 | Mr. W. Bruce | ||
No events
W. Peebles–Dublin–(1)William Henry Darby–Limerick–(1)