David Cull Trophy to showcase real tennis at MCC during cricket summer

Reinstated tournament to feature members, candidates and professionals.

As the Home of Cricket, Lord’s is one of the most iconic venues in sport, and this year Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has added a new tennis tournament to the hectic summer roster. Designed to complement the cricket season and showcase good quality tennis, the David Cull Trophy will be taking place in July and August, alongside the India Test match and county cricket calendar.

MCC has a unique opportunity to showcase real tennis to a potential matchday audience of over 30,000 traditional sports enthusiasts. Through lunch breaks, changes of innings or simply the British weather, there will be times during the Test match against India that real tennis will be the only live sport on show at the famous old venue.

The level tournament has been opened to MCC members, candidates and professionals, with the top 23 eligible entrants on handicap taking part. We are delighted to report that three Category 1 players have entered and been seeded through to the quarter-finals. The full draw is shown at the bottom of this article.

We are interested in readers’ suggestions, but we suspect that with Robert Fahey, Robert Shenkman and Jamie Douglas this may be the highest quality roster of any club tournament. All three have pedigree at Lord’s, with Robert Shenkman, the current holder of the MCC Gold Racquet, and Jamie Douglas, a 12-time Gold Racquet winner.

Whilst his name may not yet appear on a board at MCC, Robert Fahey is a six-time European Open Champion at Lord’s and has a portrait hanging en route to the court.

Gold Racquet 2023 — Jamie Douglas & Robert Shenkman

Technically, MCC has by far the most members of any real tennis club in the world, with all 23,000 full and associate members welcome to try their hand at tennis. One byproduct of this is that the somewhat smaller community of real tennis playing members are often spread around the country (and the world), with other clubs often quite rightly considered members primary club. The David Cull Trophy is designed as an opportunity for the best members and candidates to descend on Lord’s and compete with each other.

Anyone out there who also falls into this category but perhaps does not receive the Club emails is encouraged to get in touch for next year’s iteration.

David Cull is the former Head Professional at Lord’s from 1975-2002. He arrived at the Club promising to bowl spin on the hallowed turf, but found himself devoting his career to the less well-known game hiding behind the Pavilion. David spent his entire 45-year career at Lord’s starting in 1957.

The original competition was set up in 2010 and ran through to 2019 as a singles and then doubles competition to encourage the best members to play at Lord’s. Previous winners have included Chris Swallow and Simon Talbot-Williams who find themselves back in the draw several years later. With the addition of candidates and the overlap with cricket, the new version is hoping to build on the past.

MCC was established in 1787 with the first tennis court appearing on the boundary in 1838. In fact, the sports of Cricket and Tennis may have been entwined for longer still. One popular theory states that the word cricket derived from the Flemish ‘met de krik ketsen’ (with the stick, chase). It is thought to be no coincidence that the word racquet also shares the same suffix phonetically.

The Club is delighted to be continuing the partnership this summer and encourages anyone attending the India Test match to pop in and watch or view on our YouTube Channel here. In addition, spectators are welcome to attend on Sunday, 20 July and Saturday, 02 August — providing they notify the Club professionals ahead of time. For the final on Sunday, 10 August, ground admission tickets are available for Middlesex v Sussex Sharks One-Day Cup match on the Lord’s website for £20, when the tennis will be taking place during the scheduled lunch break.

Lord’s real tennis court in May 2025 after refurbishment works

With the original floor slabs from the first Lord’s court recently cleaned and the penthouse sanded down, the court is in top condition to welcome some quality real tennis this summer. The club has also designed a new map of real tennis courts in the UK which will be on display in the Dedans throughout. The idea is to pique interest in real tennis, and encourage visitors to Lord’s to reach out to their local real tennis club. The club is indebted to Peter Luck-Hille for his support of the tournament.