The 1877 Women's Tennis Season was mainly composed of national, regional, local amateur tournaments. This year 3 tennis events were staged in Dublin, Limerick and Waterford, Ireland between April and September 1877
Season summary
The women's amateur tennis seasons covers a period of thirty five years from 1876 to 1912. During this period there was no single international organization responsible for overseeing tennis. At the very start in tennis history lawn tennis clubs themselves organized events and some like the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in England (f.1877) and the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club, Ireland (f.1879) generally oversaw tennis in their respective countries.
This would later change when tennis players started (those that could) traveled the world to compete in events organized by individual national lawn tennis associations (NLTA)'s the oldest of which then was the United States Lawn Tennis Association (f. 1881). In certain countries that did not establish a national association until later, had provincial, regional or state lawn tennis associations overseeing tournaments in a province, region or state within a country, such as the Northern Lawn Tennis Association in Manchester, England (f.1880),[1] had responsibility for coordinating tournaments staged by clubs in the North of England region. In Australia the Victorian Lawn Tennis Association (f.1904) organised tournaments in the state of Victoria, Australia.
In 1877 three tournaments for women were staged all of them in Ireland. At the second edition of South of Ireland Championships in Limerick the singles event was won by a Miss Smith.[2] This year saw the first edition of the Waterford Lawn Tennis Tournament held at Waterford Cricket & Lawn Tennis Club, Rocklands, Waterford, County Waterford the singles title was won by Frances Gallwey.
This year was the first staging of the Wimbledon Championships the world's first major tennis tournament, however it was an all men's event, no women's events were staged.
In 1913 the International Lawn Tennis Federation was created, that consisted of national member associations. The ILTF through its associated members then became responsible for supervising women's tour events.
Season results
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),[3] in some tournaments not all.
* Indicates challenger
Notes 2:Tournaments in italics were events that were staged only once that season
^Papers Past, (20 March 1922). Abolition of Challenge Round. Paris International Championships. Evening Post Newspaper: Volume CIII, Issue 65, National Library of New Zealand. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers. Accessed: 14 July 2022 October.
^,Nauright, John, Parrish, Charles, (2012) Sports Around the World: History, Culture, and Practice. ABC-CLIO. Santa Barbara, Calif, USA. ISBN 9781598843002. p. 198.
^Gillmeister, Heiner (1998) Tennis:Cultural History. A&C Black. London. ISBN 9780718501952. p.199.
^Lake, Robert J. (2014) A Social History of Tennis in Britain: Volume 5 of Routledge Research in Sports History: Routledge. Oxford. p.48.
^King, Billie Jean and Starr, Cynthia. (November 1, 1988). We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women's Tennis. McGraw-Hill. New York. United States. p.5.
