History of tennis

The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis was invented in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, and is now commonly known simply as tennis. It is the direct descendant of what is now known as real tennis or royal tennis, which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules.

Most rules of tennis derive from real tennis. Most historians believe that tennis originated in northern France in the 12th century, but the ball was then struck with the palm of the hand, hence the name jeu de paume. It was not until the 16th century that rackets came into use and the game began to be called 'tennis'. It was popular in the Kingdom of France as well as in England, where Henry VIII of England was a notable enthusiast of the game now referred to as real tennis.

By the late 19th century, there was confusion among players and clubs because several competing rulebooks emerged as lawn tennis began to spread. In March 1875, an open meeting at Lord's was organised, resulting in the publication of the 1875 MCC Laws of Lawn Tennis in May. This code provided the foundations for the rules used at the first Wimbledon Championships in 1877.

The Davis Cup, an annual competition between men's national teams, dates to 1900. The analogous competition for women's national teams, the Fed Cup, was founded as the Federation Cup in 1963. In 1968, the distinction between amateur and professional players was abandoned, beginning the Open Era, in which all players could compete in all tournaments. With the start of the Open Era, tennis grew in popularity worldwide.

Etymology

The word tennis started being used in English in the middle of the 14th century. It came from French, through an old term called Tenez. This word means things like “hold!”, “receive!”, or “take!”. It was what a player would say to their opponent when they were about to serve the ball. The first time we see the word tennis in English writing is in a poem by John Gower. He wrote it in 1400 for King Henry IV. In the poem, he says: “Of the tenetz to winne or lese a chase, Mai no lif wite er that the bal be ronne”. This means that in tennis, you can’t know if you will win or lose a point until the ball has been hit.

Origin

References to tennis appear in stories from the Middle Ages. In The Second Shepherds' Play (around 1500), a tennis ball is listed among gifts given to the newborn Christ. In The Turke and Gowin (around 1500), Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's round table, plays tennis against 17 giants.

Most historians believe tennis began in northern France in the 1200s. At first, players used their hands to hit the ball, which is why the game was called jeu de paume (meaning 'game of the palm'). Later, players used gloves. This game may have been played by monks in monastery cloisters, but the courts looked more like old courtyards and streets.

By the 1500s, the glove became a racquet, and the game moved to enclosed courts with set rules. This version is now called real tennis.

Real tennis became popular with European royalty. Francis I of France enjoyed the game and built courts. Henry VIII of England also loved real tennis and built a court at Hampton Court in 1530.

In 1555, an Italian priest wrote the first known book about tennis. More stories and paintings about tennis appeared over time. The game was enjoyed by noble families in France, Spain, Italy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but it declined in England during a strict religious period. By the time of Napoleon, real tennis was mostly forgotten. It played a small part in the French Revolution when people met at a tennis court near Versailles to make an important promise.

As real tennis declined in England during the 1700s and early 1800s, new racquet games appeared: racquets, squash racquets, and lawn tennis (the modern game). Many old tennis courts remain in the British Isles, such as those at Oxford, Cambridge, Falkland Palace, and Hampton Court Palace.

Birth of lawn tennis

The modern game of tennis started in England in the 1860s. Two men, Harry Gem and Augurio Perera, created a new game by mixing parts of racquets and croquet. They played this game on a lawn in Birmingham and later started the first tennis club in Leamington Spa.

Another man, Walter Wingfield, designed a special court shape and helped make tennis rules. His ideas helped spread the game, and soon tennis became very popular in Britain. Around the same time, tennis was brought to the United States, where it grew as a favorite outdoor sport.

Terminology

Wingfield took the name and many French words from real tennis. The word "tennis" comes from the French tenez, meaning "hold!" or "take!", which players used to warn their opponent about to serve.

Other words also have interesting origins. "Racket" comes from an Arabic word meaning the palm of the hand. "Deuce" means two points away from winning a game. The word "love" for zero may come from the French word for "egg", which looks like a zero, or from a Dutch phrase meaning to do something for praise with no money involved.

We do not know why tennis scores are called "15", "30", and "40". One idea is that these numbers came from clock quarters, or from old gambling rules, or even a trick by royal families to keep servants from understanding the scoring.

Tournaments and tours of the Amateur Era

Amateur tournaments

The Four Majors

The four majors or Grand Slam tournaments, the four biggest competitions on the tennis circuit, are Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open. Since the mid-1920s they became and have remained the more prestigious events in tennis. Winning these four tournaments in the same year is called the Calendar Grand Slam (a term borrowed from bridge).

1877: Wimbledon

Main article: Wimbledon, The Beginning

The Championships, Wimbledon, were founded by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in 1877 to raise money for the club. The first Championships were contested by 22 men and the winner received a Silver Gilt Cup proclaiming the winner to be "The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World". The first Championships culminated a significant debate on how to standardize the rules. The following year, it was recognized as the official British Championships, although it was open to international competitors. In 1884 the Ladies Singles and Gentlemen's Doubles Championships were inaugurated, followed by the Ladies and Mixed Doubles in 1913.

1881: U.S. Open

Main article: History of U.S. Open

Tennis was first played in the U.S. on a grass court set up on the Estate of Col. William Appleton in Nahant, Massachusetts by James Dwight, Richard Dudley Sears and Fred Sears in 1874. In 1881, the desire to play tennis competitively led to the establishment of tennis clubs.

The first American National tournament was played in 1880 at the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club in New York. An Englishman named Otway Woodhouse won the singles match. There was also a doubles match which was won by a local pair. There were different rules at each club. The ball in Boston was larger than the one normally used in NY. On 21 May 1881, the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the United States Tennis Association) was formed to standardize the rules and organize competitions.

The U.S. National Men's Singles Championship, now the US Open, was first held in 1881 at Newport, Rhode Island. The U.S. National Women's Singles Championships were first held in 1887 in Philadelphia.

The tournament was made officially one of the tennis 'Majors' from 1924 by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF).

1891/1925: French Open

Main article: History of French Open

Tennis was predominantly a sport of the English-speaking world, dominated by Great Britain and the United States. It was also popular in France, where the French Open dates to 1891 as the Championat de France International de Tennis. This tournament was not recognised as a Major or Grand Slam tournament until it was opened to all nationalities in 1925.

1905: Australian Open

Main article: History of Australian Open

The Australian Open was first played in 1905 as The Australasian (Australia and New Zealand) Championships. Because of its geographic remoteness, historically, the event did not gain attendance from the top tennis players. It became one of the major tennis tournaments starting in 1924 (designated by the ILTF). In 1927, because of New Zealand tennis authorities releasing their commitments to the tournament, it became known as the Australian Championships. For most of the 1970s and the early 1980s, the event lacked participation from top ranked tennis professionals. Since its move to Melbourne Park in 1988, the Australian Open has gained the popularity of the other three majors.

The Davis Cup

Main article: Davis Cup

In 1898, Dwight F. Davis of the Harvard University tennis team designed a tournament format with the idea of challenging the British to a tennis showdown. The first match, between the United States and Great Britain was held in Boston, Massachusetts in (/wiki/1900_International_Lawn_Tennis_Challenge). The American team, of which Dwight Davis was a part, surprised the British by winning the first three matches. By (/wiki/1905_International_Lawn_Tennis_Challenge) the tournament had expanded to include Belgium, Austria, France, and Australasia, a combined team from Australia and New Zealand that competed jointly until (/wiki/1913_International_Lawn_Tennis_Challenge).

The tournament initially was known as the International Lawn Tennis Challenge. It was renamed the Davis Cup following the death of Dwight Davis in 1945. The tournament has vastly expanded and, on its 100th anniversary in 1999, 130 nations competed.

International Tennis Federation

1913 also saw 12 national tennis associations agree at a Paris conference to form the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), renamed in 1977 as the current International Tennis Federation (ITF). The rules the association promulgated in 1924 have remained remarkably stable in the ensuing century, the one major change being the addition of the tie-break system designed by James Van Alen.

The same year, tennis withdrew from the Olympics after the 1924 Games but returned 60 years later as a 21-and-under demonstration event in 1984. This reinstatement was credited by the efforts by the then ITF President Philippe Chatrier, ITF General Secretary David Gray and ITF Vice President Pablo Llorens as well as support from IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. The success of the event was overwhelming, and the IOC decided to reintroduce tennis as a full medal sport at Seoul in 1988.

The Fed Cup

Main article: Fed Cup

The idea of a Davis Cup-style tournament for national women's teams is surprisingly old—it was first proposed in 1919 by Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman. After she was turned down, she donated a trophy in 1923 that would be known as the Wightman Cup, awarded in an annual match between the two strongest women's tennis nations of the time, the United States and Great Britain.

Wightman's original idea for a worldwide women's team tournament would bear fruit more than 40 years later in 1962, when Nell Hopman persuaded the ITF to begin sponsoring such an event. The first Federation Cup was played in (/wiki/1963_Federation_Cup_(tennis)) as part of the ITF's 50th anniversary celebrations; it involved 16 countries and was played over one week. By the 1990s, over 70 nations competed each year, and regional qualifiers were introduced in (/wiki/1992_Federation_Cup_(tennis)). In (/wiki/1995_Fed_Cup), the ITF introduced a new Davis Cup-style format for the competition and rechristened it the Fed Cup.

The professional circuit

In 1926, promoter C.C. Pyle established the first professional tour with a group of American and French players playing exhibition matches to paying audiences. The most notable early professionals were American Vinnie Richards and Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen. Players turning pro could not compete in the major (amateur) tournaments.

Before the Open Era, the leading professional players were under contract with a professional promoter who controlled their appearances. For example, in 1926, Lenglen and Richards toured North America along with Paul Féret and Mary K. Browne under contract to Charles C. Pyle. The main events of the professional circuit comprised head-to-head competition and by-invitation Pro Championships, which were the equivalent of the Grand Slam tournaments on the professional circuit.

Suzanne Lenglen was the leading player in the first year of the professional circuit, and after she retired in February 1927, few female players played on the professional circuit before the Open Era.

Pro tours

Main article: Tennis Pro Tours

In the years before the Open Era, professionals often played more frequently on head-to-head tours than in tournaments because tours paid much better than tournaments and the number of professional tournaments was small. For example, Fred Perry earned U.S. $91,000 ($2,038,021 today) in a 1937 North American tour against Ellsworth Vines but won only U.S. $450 ($10,293 today) for his 1938 victory at the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships. Vines probably never entered a tournament in 1937 and 1938. In 1937, Vines played 70 matches on two tours and no tournament matches. Even in the 1950s, some professionals continued to play tour matches. During his first five months as a professional (January through May 1957), Ken Rosewall played 76 matches on a tour against Pancho Gonzales but only 9 tournament matches. Joe McCauley determined that for 1952, only 7 professional tournaments were played by the top international players, and 2 other professional tournaments (the British Pro and the German Pro) were reserved for domestic players. Only during the 1960s did professional tournaments become more significant than tours.

Pro Championships (Pro Slams)

Main article: Major professional tennis tournaments before the Open Era

In addition to head-to-head events several annual professional tournaments were called championship tournaments. The most prestigious was usually the Wembley Championship, held at the Wembley Arena in England, played between 1934 and 1990. The oldest was the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships, played between 1927 and 1999. Between 1954 and 1962, it was played indoors in Cleveland and was called the World Professional Championships. The third major tournament was the French Pro Championship, played between 1930 and 1968. The British and American championships continued into the Open Era but devolved to the status of minor tournaments after the late 1960s.

The Tournament of Champions was held between 1957 and 1959, the 1957 Australian editions taking place in Sydney White City and Melbourne Kooyong, while the U.S. editions in 1957, 1958 and 1959 took place at Forest Hills, Queens. There was also the Wimbledon Pro tournament held in August 1967, the first tournament where professional tennis players were allowed to play at Wimbledon.

Open Era

See also: Open Era tennis records – Women's singles

The Open Era started in 1968 when Grand Slam tournaments decided to allow professional players to compete against amateur players.

Before 1968, only amateur players were allowed to play in Grand Slam tournaments and other events organized by the ILTF, including the Davis Cup.

During the early years of the Open Era, there were disagreements between the ILTF and commercial promoters, which led to some players boycotting Grand Slam events. The first Open Era event was the 1968 British Hard Court Championships in April at The West Hants Club in Bournemouth, England, and the first open Grand Slam tournament was the 1968 French Open in May. Both tournaments were won by Ken Rosewall. The Open Era allowed all tennis players to earn money by playing tennis.

National Tennis League (NTL) and World Championship Tennis (WCT)

In 1968, some professional players were independent, including Lew Hoad, Mal Anderson, Luis Ayala, and Owen Davidson, but most top players were under contract. George McCall managed the National Tennis League (NTL) and players like Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Andrés Gimeno, Pancho Gonzales, Fred Stolle and Roy Emerson. Meanwhile, Dave Dixon, later succeeded by Lamar Hunt, ran the World Championship Tennis (WCT) and managed the "Handsome Eight": John Newcombe, Tony Roche, Nikola Pilić, Roger Taylor, Pierre Barthès, Earl "Butch" Buchholz, Cliff Drysdale and Dennis Ralston. In 1968, none of the original Handsome Eight WCT players took part in the French Open. In 1970, NTL players did not play in the Australian Open because their organization did not receive a guarantee. In 1970, neither WCT nor NTL players played in the French Open.

Grand Prix circuit

Main article: Grand Prix tennis circuit

In the first two years of the Open Era, the National Tennis League and WCT promoters began to control the sport. To counter them, Jack Kramer, a top player from the late 1940s and early 1950s and then a promoter, created the Grand Prix tennis circuit in late 1969. He described it as a series of tournaments with a money bonus pool that would be shared based on a points system. This would encourage top players to compete regularly, so they could share in the bonus and qualify for a special championship tournament at the end of the year.

In 1970, no contract players took part in the French Open. The International Lawn Tennis Federation, worried about promoters' control, approved Kramer's Grand Prix. Twenty-seven tournaments, including the three Grand Slams (French Open, Wimbledon and US Open), were held that year, with the Stockholm tournament ending on 1 November. Independent professional players and some contract players joined the Grand Prix circuit. Contract players could play Grand Prix events if their contracts allowed it and they had enough time apart from their own circuit.

Tour rivalries and the creation of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)

The first WCT tournaments were held in February 1968 and the first NTL tournaments in March 1969. In July 1970, the WCT took over the NTL. At the end of 1970, journalists ranked the players, leading the WCT to invite the top 32 men to play the 1971 WCT circuit. In 1971, the WCT held 20 tournaments and ended the year with the WCT Finals. In 1971, most top players still mainly played the WCT circuit. As a result, the 1971 Australian Open was a WCT competition, while the French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open were ILTF Grand Prix events.^{[citation needed]}

By then, the rivalry between the two groups became so intense that Rosewall, Gimeno, Laver, Emerson and some other WCT players boycotted the 1971 US Open (although Newcombe played and lost in the first round to Kodes). Bill Riordan, the future manager of Jimmy Connors, made matters more complicated with a third professional tour, the U.S. Indoor Circuit. In 1972, the conflict between the ILTF and the WCT reached its peak when the ILTF banned contract professional players from all ILTF Grand Prix events between January and July, including the 1972 French Open and 1972 Wimbledon.^{[citation needed]}

At the 1972 US Open in September, all players attended and agreed to form a player group to protect themselves from promoters and organizations, leading to the creation of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in 1973. In 1973, there were four professional circuits: the WCT circuit, the Grand Prix circuit, the U.S. Indoor Circuit with Connors and Ilie Năstase and the European Spring Circuit with Năstase as their star. During the year, the ILTF banned Nikola Pilić from 1973 Wimbledon for refusing to play in Yugoslavia's Davis Cup match against New Zealand. In response, 81 of Pilic's fellow ATP players boycotted 1973 Wimbledon, stating that professional players should decide whether to play Davis Cup matches. The only ATP players who did not boycott 1973 Wimbledon were Ilie Năstase, Roger Taylor and Ray Keldie. They were later fined by the ATP for playing in the tournament.

Between 1974 and 1978, any tennis player who participated in the new World TeamTennis, which clashed with the European part of the Grand Prix circuit, was banned by the French Tennis Federation from playing in the French Open that year. ^[why?]

Integration

In 1978 the ILTF Grand Prix and WCT circuits merged. However, In 1982, the WCT circuit separated again and created a more complex WCT ranking, similar to the ATP ranking. The WCT was not as successful in the 1980s, and the Grand Prix circuit became the main circuit. The Grand Prix's governance was led by the Men's International Professional Tennis Council (also called the Men's Tennis Council). The WCT Finals in Dallas continued until the end of the 1980s, and then ended with the creation of the ATP Tour in 1990.^{[citation needed]}

The Open Era, the global professional circuit, and television helped tennis grow worldwide and lose its old, anglocentric image. In the United States, since the 1970s, tennis courts have been common in public parks. Around the same time, the U.S. Open moved from the private West Side Tennis Club to a public park (the USTA National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows Park) that anyone could visit by buying a ticket. About the same time, the organization's name changed from the United States Lawn Tennis Association to the United States Tennis Association.

ATP Tour

In 1990, the Association of Tennis Professionals, led by Hamilton Jordan, replaced the MTC as the governing body for men's professional tennis. They created the ATP Tour, and grouped the nine most important events as the "Championship Series – Single Tournament Week", and beginning in 1996, as the "Super Nine". Twelve of the Grand Prix events, which were slightly less important than the first nine, were called the "Championship Series – Double Week" (meaning in most cases, 2 of those tournaments happened the same week). Winning a Super Nine tournament was worth about half the points (370) of winning a Grand Slam tournament (750), while Championship Series tournaments were worth up to 360 points depending on the prize money. This system continued until 2000, when the Super Nine were renamed the Masters Series (winners earning 500 points), placed below the Grand Slams (1000 points for winners), and the Championship Series was renamed the International Series Gold (winners earning 250 to 300 points). In 2000, the Grand Slam tournaments and the Masters Series tournaments became required events for players who qualified. Players were automatically entered, and Masters and Slam events became the main basis for player rankings, with up to five more tournaments also counted (18 in all plus the ATP Finals if they qualified). Before 2000, a player's best 14 tournaments counted towards the ATP Point Rankings.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, the Masters events were renamed the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 with the Monte-Carlo Masters becoming a non-mandatory event, meaning a player could use results from a lower-level tournament instead of it. International Series Gold became the ATP World Tour 500 and the remaining events became the ATP World Tour 250. The numbers in the tournament type name show the points for the winners. For comparison, a winner of one of the four Grand Slam tournaments earns 2000 points. In 2009, more importance was placed on winning a tournament, as the points for the runner-up dropped from 70% of the champion's points to 60% (from 700 points to 600 points in a Masters 1000 event). Points also began to be awarded for Davis Cup singles matches.

Women's professional tennis

Women's professional tennis started in 1926 when a top player, Suzanne Lenglen, agreed to play matches for money. After a short series of games, women didn’t play professionally again until 1941. World War II made it hard to hold many competitions during those years.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a few women played exhibition matches and tours. By 1958, Althea Gibson turned professional and even performed with a famous team for a season. It wasn’t until 1967 that women began playing more regularly on professional tours.

In 1970, women were offered much less prize money than men, which led to protests. A new tour was created in 1971, offering better rewards. By 1973, the U.S. Open started giving equal prize money to men and women. That same year, the Women's Tennis Association was formed to organize women’s professional tennis worldwide.

Mens Professional Tennis

Mens professional tennis has grown a lot over time, with many important players shaping the sport. People often wonder why some players do better than others—is it because of their strong hand or the type of court they play on? Whatever the reason, several men have had a big effect on tennis.

Some key players from different decades include Jimmy Connors, who became famous in the 1970s. Ivan Lendl was a top player in the 1980s, holding the world’s number one spot many times. The 1990s were led by Pete Sampras, who was the year-end world number one for six years in a row. More recently, Roger Federer became a major star in the early 2000s, also finishing as the year-end number one five times.

International Tennis Hall of Fame

In 1954, James Van Alen created the International Tennis Hall of Fame, a museum in Newport, Rhode Island. The museum holds many special items and celebrates important players and people in tennis. Every year, a grass-court tennis match is held there, and new members are welcomed during a special ceremony.