What Is Queen’s Tennis? (& How To Watch At Home)

Wimbledon may be the best known British tennis tournament, but Queen’s is one of our top players’ favourite to tournament on home shores. ‘I love being at home there,’ Cameron Norrie told C&TH ahead of the tennis season in 2023. ‘The whole grass season is just so special, and it leads up to Wimbledon, which I’m so excited for.’ But what is Queen’s tennis? Here we take a look at the history – plus how to watch from home.

Queen’s Club grass court © Paul Gillett, CC BY-SA 2.0, via geograph.org

What Is Queen’s Tennis?

The Queen’s Tennis Tournament – also known as the Queen’s Club Championships, the HSBC Championships (for its title sponsor), or simply Queen’s – is an annual grass court tennis competition held at the Queen’s Club in West Kensington, London. In 2025, Queen’s will run from 9 to 22 June.

Since it was founded 139 years ago (in 1886), Queen’s welcomed both male and female players every year – until the women’s competition was discontinued in 1974. Flash forward to 2025 and Queen’s is finally back on the WTA Tour, with top 10 players Zheng Qinwen, Madison Keys and Emma Navarro competing in the long-awaited return event alongside reigning Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova and Brits Katie Boulter and Emma Raducanu.

For both the men’s and women’s tennis tours, Queen’s is a category 500 tournament. This is the fourth tier of competition, with up to 500 points awarded to players’ rankings, meaning plenty of top players come here to boost their score. On the men’s side in 2025, this includes last year’s Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, British number one Jack Draper and fellow top 10 players Lorenzo Musetti, Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Holger Rune and Alex de Minaur. For comparison, a Grand Slam (Wimbledon, Roland-Garros, US Open, Australian Open) is worth 2,000 points.

Dating back to 1890, Queen’s is one of the oldest tennis tournaments in the world. Along with Wimbledon, Queen’s is one of very few remaining grass tournaments in the world (one of just eight grass tournaments on the ATP tour in 2025, all of which are played in the UK; in total there are 60 ATP tournaments in 2025). Because of this key similarity and because Queen’s usually concludes one week before Wimbledon begins, it is often considered a warm-up for the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis at the 2005 Queen’s Club Championships © Shermozle/Wikimedia Commons

A Brief History Of Queen’s Tennis

The Queen’s Tennis Tournament has been held at the Queen’s Club since 1890, but the tournament’s roots can be traced slightly earlier to 1881 when the London Athletic Club hosted a tennis tournament in Stamford Bridge in Fulham (now the home of Chelsea FC). In 1885, this was named the Championship of London, then the London Championships and London Grass Court Championships, before taking the name of its host club from 1977 onwards.

Despite women playing in the tournament from its beginning in 1881, the women’s competition was discontinued after 1973. Before then, the courts hosted tennis legends such as Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and Margaret Court. And as of 2025, women are back in the mix.

The tournament takes place every year at the Queen’s Club, a renowned private tennis club in west London, which was named for Queen Victoria in 1887 after she granted the club a royal charter. The club is home to 28 outdoor tennis courts and 10 indoor courts; it is also the national headquarters of real tennis (the original sport from which modern tennis derives), rackets and squash. Despite having so many courts, Queen’s is known for being intimate, as the courts offer a relatively small capacity compared to other major tournaments.

The tournament has always been held on outdoor grass courts, and is known for providing a fast and challenging surface, demanding great skill from the players. Singles matches are played as ‘best of three’, and doubles competitions also take place here.

The record holding winner is Andy Murray, who has won Queen’s a total of five times. Because it is thought of as a precursor to Wimbledon, it’s always worth keeping your eye out for the Queen’s results – they might just hint at who is going to prevail later in the summer.

Why Are Women Back At Queen’s?

In 2025, women are playing at Queen’s Tennis for the first time in 52 years – but it’s not the very first time women have competed here. In fact, a women’s tournament was played at the Queen’s Club from 1886 to 1974. And in 1974, 1975 and 1976, even men didn’t compete at Queen’s: the tournament, then known as the London Grass Court Championship, was held elsewhere for two years. When it returned to Queen’s in 1977 with its shiny new name, it was only a men’s tournament.

Thankfully, the women’s tournament wasn’t simply discontinued – it moved to Eastbourne. This is because the logistics at Queen’s were getting difficult. For women, Eastbourne grew into a challenge worth 500 points, but it has been downgraded to 250 for 2025, meaning Queen’s is the highest profile competition for women tennis players in the UK after Wimbledon.

‘This year fans will be able to enjoy both men’s and women’s tennis on the biggest stages that we can offer,’ LTA chief Scott Lloyd told the BBC. ‘We want to develop the tournaments so that the women’s events deliver a path to profitability and greater visibility for the sport.’

What’s The Prize?

The winner of Queen’s doesn’t just walk home with a trophy and 500 points: there’s a lucrative cash prize to enjoy, too. The winner of the women’s tournament will take home £1.043 million, while the men’s winner will bag £2.122 million.

There’s a bit of a disparity there – and it’s a tale as old as time. The LTA has a minimum prize value for different levels of tennis tournament, and has pledged to offer equal prize pots at Queen’s and Eastbourne no later than 2029.

Where To Watch Queen’s Tennis On TV 2025

Isa Guha is presenting the BBC’s coverage of the women’s Queen’s Tennis Tournament in 2025 across BBC Two, BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer. From Monday 9 June, coverage will begin at midday everyday on BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer, and then at 2pm on BBC Two Monday to Wednesday and 1pm Thursday and Friday. On Saturday 14 June, coverage of the women’s semi-finals will begin at 1.25pm across BBC One, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport, followed by the final from 1.15pm on Sunday.

From Monday 16 June, it’s over to the men: Clare Balding will present live coverage everyday from 1pm on BBC Two, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport. Timings for the semi-final and final on Saturday 21 June and Sunday 22 June are still TBC, but both will be broadcast live on BBC One.