Cambridge University Lawn Tennis Club was founded in 1881, seven years before the Lawn Tennis Association of Great Britain was founded.[citation needed] Although it is called a 'club', it is actually the lawn tennis association of the whole of the University of Cambridge, representing the university as a whole, the thirty-one colleges, and other institutions which are part of the university.
CULTC is directly affiliated to the Lawn Tennis Association of Great Britain and has a representative on the council and on the board of the association. The president and former chairman of the club, Sir Geoffrey Cass, was president of the Lawn Tennis Association and Chairman of the L.T.A. Council 1997–1999. He is currently president of the British Tennis Foundation.[1]
The university and colleges give considerable support to British tennis by making available their administrative and playing facilities. CULTC regularly arranges for County Week groups to be held on college grounds.
The university's annual fixture list is one of the strongest in Britain. It usually includes matches against many different countries, as well as several of Britain's leading lawn tennis clubs; also half-a-dozen universities, and a dozen other clubs and teams. Most of the club's annual fixtures are home matches, which means that in a typical year nearly 30 tennis teams from all over Britain are entertained for a day in Cambridge at Fenner's.