The Men's HSBC Championships 2027

The tournament began in 1881 as an open meeting at Stamford Bridge, took the title Championship of London in 1885, and moved to the Queen’s Club in West Kensington in 1890, where it has been played ever since. Men’s doubles were added in 1903 and mixed doubles two years after that. It has therefore been part of the British grass season for longer than most of the sport’s institutions have existed, and it has never moved again.

Its position in the calendar is what makes it matter. The grass season is barely three weeks long, and this is where a player finds out whether a game built on clay will survive a surface that rewards a low bounce and a first serve. Winning here has predicted the Wimbledon champion often enough to carry a superstition of its own.

The 2027 tournament runs from Tuesday 1 June at the Queen’s Club. It is among the smallest venues on the tour at this level, which puts a spectator closer to a top-ten player than at any of the majors, and the club’s members watch from a stand a few feet behind the baseline. The courts are the club’s own championship grass, cut and rolled for this fortnight and then given back to the members. The women’s tournament is played on the same lawns in the same week.