USSR Championships (tennis)

The U.S.S.R. Championships also known as the U.S.S.R. National Championships, or Soviet Championships was a men's and women's closed outdoor clay court, then later hard court tennis tournament founded in 1924 as the Soviet Union Championships. It was organised by the Tennis Federation of the USSR until 1991 when it was discontinued.

History
In 1907 the All-Russia Union of Lawn Tennis Clubs was founded, and its first chairman was Arthur Davidovich Macpherson (1870-1919) a Russian Sports organiser of Scottish Ancestry. In 1908 the association numbered 48 member clubs. The first Russian Lawn Tennis Championships (also called the Russian Championships) were held in 1907 and was played on clay courts, women's events were not staged until 1909 and the event was closed to Russian players until 1910. In 1913 the International Lawn Tennis Federation was founded and the then Russia was among the seventeen nations invited. In 1914 the Russian Championships were discontinued, due to World War I and the political upheaval in the country leading to the Russian Revolution in 1917 that led to the creation of a new state the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, that became part of the Soviet Union in 1922.

In 1922 the All-Soviet Union Tennis Section formed, however it would not joint the ILTF until 1956. In 1924 first Soviet Union Championships. The tournament was not held during World War II from 1941 to 1943 resuming in 1944. In 1959 the All-Soviet Union Tennis Section changed its name to the Tennis Federation of the USSR, and continued to organise the championships until 1991 when the Soviet Union ceased to being a country, and became the Russian Federation. Two years later the Tennis Federation of the USSR altered its name to the Russian Tennis Federation.

Locations
The Soviet Championships were played mainly in Moscow the most times with 21 editions held there, but also staged in Adler, Almaty, Donetsk, Kaliningrad, Kharkiv, Leningrad, Riga-Jurmala, Rostov-on-Don, Tashkent, Tallinn, Tbilisi, Uzghorod and Yerevan.