Which player won the first U.S. Women's National Singles Championship in 1887?

Ellen Hansell won the first U.S. Women’s National Singles Championship in 1887. She defeated Laura Knight 6–1, 6–0 in the final at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.

The inaugural women’s event was played on outdoor grass courts from September 27 to October 5, 1887. Hansell was 17 years old and one of seven competitors, most of whom came from the Philadelphia and wider Delaware Valley area. Her victory made her the first women’s singles champion in the tournament’s lineage.

The early championship used a challenge-round format. Hansell therefore did not need to play through the entire 1888 tournament; she met the next year’s all-comers winner, Bertha Townsend, in the challenge round and lost. The 1887 and 1888 tournaments were later recognized as official U.S. championships.

Hansell retired from competitive tennis in 1890 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1965. She is sometimes overlooked because later champions accumulated far more titles.