Italy took on Spain to win the 2025 Davis Cup final this weekend (23/11/25) in Bologna, but few people will know that Yorkshire played a key role in the first ever Davis Cup match. In the first of a series of tales drawn from the new Yorkshire Tennis Archive, John Andrews from Sheffield Hallamshire Tennis Club, takes us back to the encounter between the USA and a British Isles team, played at Longwood Cricket Club in Boston, Massachusetts, that would give birth to the ‘World Cup’ of tennis.
This year being the 125th anniversary of the first Davis Cup match we should perhaps recognise the significance of the YLTA in that encounter. The USA entertained a British Isles team at the Longwood Cricket Club in Boston Massachusetts in 1900 and the first match, the opening singles, was played between Dwight Davis, supplier of the trophy, and Ernest Black, the reigning Yorkshire Champion and at various times also Scottish and North of England champion. He was a member of the Hallamshire club in Sheffield.
Black’s two fellow ‘British Isles’ team members, Arthur Gore and Herbert Roper-Barrett were eventually to win Wimbledon titles and Olympic gold medals between them, and it is suggested Ernest was picked because the Doherty brothers were not available.
In front of a large crowd Black won that first ever set, eventually losing 6-4, 2-6, 4-6, 4-6. Arthur Gore lost in three easier sets so Black was chosen to partner Herbert Roper-Barret for the doubles, going down only 4-6,4-6,4-6 to give the USA a 3-0 victory, the ‘dead’ rubbers not played.
The Boston newspaper reported: “The visitors should have a good opinion of the American audience’s generosity for they received their full share of applause and some of Black’s shots were applauded more enthusiastically than those of any other player.”
Other sources confirmed Ernest Black’s status as the best player for the British Isles team. His early athletic prowess is evidenced in the Sheffield newspapers of 1890 when, in his Montgomery College annual sports day, at the age of just 14 (juniors were 13 and under), he won the cricket ball throwing, high jump, long jump, one mile, 880 yds, 440 yds – and the three legged race! He was annoyed to come second in the 100 yards having had to give the winner a four-yard start.
He fought in WWI with both British and Canadian Infantry and died in the latter country in 1931 aged 57, being buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia, still that Yorkshire connection!
For more detailed information on the first ever Davis Cup match, vist: 009-Ernest-Black-the-Davis-Cup.docx
