GLTA President Dan Merrithew with the GLTA’s first Commissioner, Scott Williford, unveiling the brick commemorating the founding of the GLTA in San Diego in 1991.
On October 21, 2017, a commemorative brick was unveiled at Balboa Tennis Club by the San Diego Tennis Federation (SDTF) to mark the founding of the Gay and Lesbian Tennis Alliance (GLTA) in San Diego, in 1991. The GLTA is the global body that sanctions more than 72 U.S. and international tournaments, which collectively make up the world’s “gay tennis” circuit.
The memorial was unveiled by current GLTA President, and Florida resident, Dan Merrithew, alongside the GLTA’s inaugural and founding Commissioner, San Diego local Scott Williford. The dedication took place to coincide with the first day of San Diego Doubles 2017, one of two GLTA-sanctioned tennis tournaments that take place annually in San Diego.
The impetus for establishing the GLTA came from the rapid growth of gay tennis groups in the late 1980s, the success and need for which can be seen, like most other gay sports organizations, as a response to the early-80s AIDS crisis, when gay men and women came together as a community to support one another, organize and fight for equality under the law.
Several gay tennis clubs were already hosting their own tournaments by the time of the third Gay Games in 1990, held in Vancouver. When more than 400 players registered to compete in the Games’ tennis event, issues such as seeding, standards and rules finally came to a head. Scott Williford, a self-confessed numbers guy, and at the time President of SDTF, had already been unofficially collating data from existing gay tournaments and flew in to help the organizers avoid a meltdown. This experience convinced him of the need to harmonize rules and create an overarching infrastructure for gay tennis, which was growing and becoming international. When he returned to San Diego he set about soliciting feedback for his ideas from all of the regional gay tennis groups.
With the need for a governing body agreed to at an informal meeting over Memorial Day in 1991, it was in San Diego over Independence Day later that year, coinciding with the sixth annual San Diego Open, that the GLTA was established and its first officers were elected. Scott Williford became the GLTA’s first Commissioner alongside four other founding officers: Chris Walker (Treasurer), Norm Burgos (Secretary), Gary Sutton (Public Relations) and David Black (Tournament Standards). The GLTA was born.
Since then the GLTA, which could be thought of as an international USTA for gay tennis (or an amateur ATP/WTA), has grown so that it now sanctions tournaments on four continents (London was the first European tournament in 1996, Hong Kong’s first GLTA tournament will take place in November) and has more than 9,500 registered men and more than 1,000 registered women players. The GLTA’s longevity, growth and scope is a testament to the light-touch way in which it operates – affording local clubs and tournament directors much autonomy – and the positive effect it has in forging national and global friendships around a shared passion for social and competitive tennis.
