The U.S. Pro Tennis Championships was the oldest professional tennis tournament played until its final year of 1999 and is considered as a part of the professional Grand Slam from 1927–1967 until the advent of Open Era. Pancho Gonzales holds the record for most wins with eight. In 1960, the Cleveland World Pro had a women's draw, with Althea Gibson defeating Pauline Betz in the women's final. American's first prominent professional player, Vinny Richards, arranged what became the first U.S. Professionals by negotiating with Doc Kelton to have a tournament played at the Notlek Tennis Club, located at 119th Street and Riverside Drive in Manhattan, New York, on September 23–25, 1927. Richards, tour pro Howard Kinsey and teaching pros from the eastern U.S. comprised the field, with Richards defeating Kinsey in the final in straight sets, a victory which earned him $1,000 first-prize money. The tournament was subsequently held annually at various locations including the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York City, the South Shore Tennis Club in Chicago, in Rye, New York, at the Terrace Club in Brooklyn, the Chicago Town and Tennis Club in Chicago, at the L.A. Tennis Club in Los Angeles, at various clubs around Cleveland, Ohio, and Cleveland Arena in Cleveland. In 1954, the USPLTA authorized Kramer to hold the U.S. Pro Championships at the L.A. Tennis Club in California, Gonzales winning the event, and the Benrus Cup was awarded to Gonzales. Its final permanent home was the Longwood Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where it was held from 1964 to 1999. It became part of the Grand Prix Tennis Tour shortly after the advent of open tennis in 1968. Between 1970 and 1977 it was a prominent tournament of the Grand Prix Super Series. It then became a tennis event within the ATP Tour with reorganization of the top tier of pro tour tennis. The tournament was later played on Har-Tru clay courts and was initially an important tune-up event for the US Open. But when this Grand Slam tournament moved to hardcourts in 1978, the U.S. Professionals did not follow suit, electing instead to hold its tournament during the US clay court season in early summer instead of during its hitherto pre-Open era time slot. Remaining a clay event into the 1990s, the U.S. Professionals was a non-ATP exhibition event during the early 1990s. It was only in its final three years that the tournament was once again an ATP event and played on hardcourts.
