A tennis club was first organized at the university in 1888 but subsequently ceased to function. In 1909 the University Tennis Club was formed, and a tennis court was constructed for the club’s use behind Old College. The first tennis tournament was held in spring 1914 under the auspices of the newly reorganized tennis club. In the singles tournament, there were 24 entries and not a defaulted match. The singles championship was won by John Ayres, and the doubles championship was won by John Ayres and Roy Jones. In the spring of 1915, a UT team played the first intercollegiate tennis match against a team from Georgia Tech.
In 1923 a new tennis club was formed, and students raised the money to add three tennis courts to the four already on the site of the former Wait Field. At that time, the membership fee for the club was $1, and the required dress for play was white duck pants, white shirt, and tennis shoes. Tournaments for fraternities, sororities, and individual play were organized. The first men’s intercollegiate tennis team was formed in 1927 but had no coach and was selected and trained by the captain.
In 1934, when a regularized minor sports program was initiated, Hugh Faust was named men’s coach, and greater institutional interest was taken in the sport. The team was dormant during World War II and was reinstituted in 1947. Tennis was one of the original nine intercollegiate sports included in the women’s intercollegiate athletics program in 1976, continuing a tradition of interest in women’s tennis begun in the early nineteenth century. The first women tennis All-Americans were twins Peta and Paula Kelly, who earned All-American honors in doubles in
1980–82. The women’s tennis program was the first to have cohead coaches in 1997, when Sonia Hahn-Patrick joined her husband, Mike Patrick (women’s head coach since 1987) as
cohead coach.