Memorial Drive Tennis Club (Adelaide, SA)

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Memorial Drive is one of the worlds great tennis clubs. It is full of tradition, and for more than seventy years has been the headquarters of South Australian tennis. For all that time it has produced grass courts which have ranked with the world's best.


MDTC Began life as the South Australian Lawn Tennis Club in 1914


The history of Memorial Drive is unusual in that the site was registered to the South Australian Lawn Terms Association and became the South Australian Lawn Tennis Club when it split off the state and national activities to a new association in 1968-69.


'Memorial Drive’ took its name from the winding avenue known as War Memorial Drive which follows the River Torrens from Hackney through North Adelaide.


The South Australian Lawn Tennis Association (SALTA) leased about six acres of ground on Park 22 in the South Park Lands between Goodwood and the Bay Roads for 21 years from 2 April 1914 at a rent of £30 per annum with £1000 to be expended within the granting of the lease. The trustees of the SALTA could terminate the lease after 2 April 1917 on giving three months notice in writing.


Progress was slow. In November 1915 the Council decided that the matter of suspending the lease should be held over until April 1916 when the rental was due, and that SALTA should be approached about depasturing on the site in the interim.


With the war ended and the lease on the South Parklands expiring the following ApriI the question to be answered was whether the SALTA was still interested in the Park 26 site. A poll of ratepayers to determine the issue was held on 7 November 1919. The poll results showed 3578 persons favoured the new lease, 1749 opposed with 78 informal votes cast.


Courts Opened in October 1921


The courts were opened in October 1921 by the Governor of South Australia Sir Archibald Weigall and Gerald Patterson won the first South Australian Men's Singles Championship in 1922, the year in which he also won Wimbledon for the second time. From this time the SALTA also acted as a club with playing and -non-playing members.


The association/club was the controlling body of tennis in South Australia. In 1923 a clubhouse and grandstand was erected, the northern grandstand being the former stand from Adelaide Oval which was dismantled and reassembled near its old home.


Jack Hawkes was the first Australian Men’ Singles Champion.


Over the years the Drive has been the venue for many major tennis events and in 1926 Geelong left-hander Jack Hawkes became not only the first winner of the Australian men’ singles staged at the Drive, but took the doubles with Patterson, and mixed doubles with Esne Boyd as well. Daphne Ackhurst won the second of her five Australian titles.



Adelaide hosted fourteen Australian championships between 191 0 and 1967, of which twelve were played at Memorial Drive. In 1938 American Donald Budge won the first leg of the first grand slam in tennis by defeating Australia’s John Bromwich in a match which lasted just forty-seven minutes.


In January 1933 Australia played a tennis Test match against the United States in the same month that the infamous 'Bodyline' Test was waged next door at the Oval. American champion Ellsworth Vines made his only appearance in Adelaide and among the Australian representatives were Adrian Quist, John Bromwich and Harry Hopman. Other international matches featured the English star Fred Perry the following year.



Adelaide's first exposure to professional tennis involved the French dual Wimbledon champion Henri Cochet in low key games against local professionals. In 1935 high-class professional tennis awaited the appearance of Pancho Gonzalez and Lew Hoad in Jack Kramer's professional troupe in 1958.


The SALTA appointed its first full time secretary in 1934 and leased additional land from the Adelaide City Council in 1938 to build a large permanent northern grandstand at a cost of £11,000. The money to build the stand came from the creation of a special category of membership which enabled tennis lovers to buy a seat for twenty-five years in the new facility. These members were known as Special Seatholders and they held -rows B to L in the centre row of seats. Unfortunately the outbreak of the Second World War the following year led to a shortfall in the sale of these memberships and left the financing of the stand incomplete so that it was only a loan of £3000 by Sir Edward Holden which enabled the stand to be opened.