HISTORY OF LAWN TENNIS
Some historians believe that tennis first originated in the Ancient Egypt. There is a general
belief that the word ‘racket’ derives from the Arabic word ‘rakhat’, which means a ‘palm’.
However, the most common point of view is that French monks started to play tennis in 11-
12 centuries. Tennis started to develop into a professional sport from 1872, when the first
lawn tennis club was established. Hoa Pereira, a Portuguese merchant, and doctors Wellesley
Tomkins and Frederick Haynes played a Spanish game with the ball called ‘pelota’ on lawns of
the Leamington resort. Later, the original rules for lawn tennis were secured (tennis on a
lawn).
Although it is impossible to state a definite origin of this game, it is recognized that a British
army officer Walter Clopton Wingfield invented rules for tennis, later calling it ‘lawn tennis’ in
1873. He had noticed a significant commercial potential of lawn tennis and patented the
game, though he failed to justify its creation. Mr. Winfield said that he had borrowed the
principles of the Greek game called “Sphairistike” (Greek for playing ball). However, many
researchers believe that he just used the principles of popular English games - playing at
courts, squash rackets, playing badminton outdoors. Very first tennis players preferred to call
Wingfield’s game “tennis on the green”, because they would play tennis on a small, grassy
lawn.
Historians believe that the game's ancient origin lay in 12th century northern France, where a
ball was struck with the palm of the hand. Louis X of France was a keen player of jeu de
paume ("game of the palm"), which evolved into real tennis, and became notable as the first
person to construct indoor tennis courts in the modern style. Louis was unhappy with playing
tennis outdoors and accordingly had indoor, enclosed courts made in Paris "around the end
of the 13th century". In due course this design spread across royal palaces all over Europe. In
June 1316 at Vincennes, Val-de-Marne and following a particularly exhausting game, Louis
drank a large quantity of cooled wine and subsequently died of either pneumonia or pleurisy,
although there was also suspicion of poisoning. Because of the contemporary accounts of his
death, Louis X is history's first tennis player known by name. Another of the early enthusiasts
of the game was King Charles V of France, who had a court set up at the Louvre Palace.
It wasn't until the 16th century that rackets came into use, and the game began to be called
"tennis", from the French term tenez, which can be translated as "hold!", "receive!" or
"take!", an interjection used as a call from the server to his opponent. It was popular in
England and France, although the game was only played indoors where the ball could be hit
off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, which is now known as real
tennis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, as real tennis declined, new racket sports
emerged in England.
Further, the patenting of the first lawn mower in 1830, in Britain, is strongly believed to have
been the catalyst, worldwide, for the preparation of modern-style grass courts, sporting
ovals, playing fields, pitches, greens, etc. This in turn led to the codification of modern rules
for many sports, including lawn tennis, most football codes, lawn bowls and others Between
1859 and 1865 Harry Gem, a solicitor and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that
combined elements of racquets and the Basque ball game pelota, which they played on
Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom. In 1872, along with two local
doctors, they founded the world's first tennis club on Avenue Road, Leamington Spa. This is
where "lawn tennis" is used as a name of activity by a club for the first time. After
Leamington, the second club to take up the game of lawn tennis appears to have been the
Edgbaston Archery and Croquet Society, also in Birmingham.
In Tennis: A Cultural History, Heiner Gillmeister reveals that on December 8, 1874, British
army officer Walter Clopton Wingfield wrote to Harry Gem, commenting that he (Wingfield)
had been experimenting with his version of lawn tennis “for a year and a half”. In December
1873, Wingfield designed and patented a game which he
called sphairistikè (Greek: σφαιριστική, meaning "ball-playing"), and was soon known simply
as "sticky" – for the amusement of guests at a garden party on his friend's estate
of Nantclwyd Hall, in Llanelidan, Wales. According to R. D. C. Evans, turfgrass agronomist,
"Sports historians all agree that [Wingfield] deserves much of the credit for the development
of modern tennis." According to Honor Godfrey, museum curator at Wimbledon, Wingfield
"popularized this game enormously. He produced a boxed set which included a net, poles,
rackets, balls for playing the game – and most importantly you had his rules. He was
absolutely terrific at marketing and he sent his game all over the world. He had very good
connections with the clergy, the law profession, and the aristocracy and he sent thousands of
sets out in the first year or so, in 1874. The world's oldest annual tennis tournament took
place at Leamington Lawn Tennis Club in Birmingham in 1874. This was three years before
the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club would hold its first championships at
Wimbledon, in 1877. The first Championships culminated a significant debate on how to
standardize the rules.
In the U.S. in 1874 Mary Ewing Outerbridge, a young socialite, returned from Bermuda with a
sphairistikè set. She became fascinated by the game of tennis after watching British army
officers play. She laid out a tennis court at the Staten Island Cricket Club at Camp
Washington, Tompkinsville, Staten Island, New York. The first American National
championship was played there in September 1880. An Englishman named O.E. Woodhouse
won the singles title, and a silver cup worth $100, by defeating Canadian I. F. Hellmuth. 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 New York.
On 21 May 1881, the oldest nationwide tennis organization in the world was formed, the
United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the United States Tennis Association) in
order 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 the Newport Casino, Newport,
Rhode Island. The U.S. National Women's Singles Championships were first held in 1887
in Philadelphia.[
Tennis also became popular in France, where the French Championships dates to 1891
although until 1925 it was open only to tennis players who were members of French
clubs.] Thus, Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open (dating to
1905) became and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis. Together these four
events are called the Majors or Slams (a term borrowed from bridge rather than baseball).
In 1913, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), now the International Tennis
Federation (ITF), was founded and established three official tournaments as the major
championships of the day. The World Grass Court Championships were awarded to Great
Britain. The World Hard Court Championships were awarded to France; the term "hard court"
was used for clay courts at the time. Some tournaments were held in Belgium instead. And
the World Covered Court Championships for indoor courts was awarded annually; Sweden,
France, Great Britain, Denmark, Switzerland and Spain each hosted the tournament. At a
meeting held on 16 March 1923 in Paris, the title 'World Championship' was dropped and a
new category of Official Championship was created for events in Great Britain, France, the
United States, and Australia – today's Grand Slam events. The impact on the four recipient
nations to replace the ‘world championships’ with ‘official championships’ was simple in a
general sense: each became a major nation of the federation with enhanced voting power
and each now operated a major event.
The comprehensive rules promulgated in 1924 by the ILTF, have remained largely stable in
the ensuing eighty years, the one major change being the addition of the tiebreak system
designed by Jimmy Van Alen. That 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, and 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 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 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the ITF.
In 1926, promoter C. C. Pyle established the first professional tennis tour with a group of
American and French tennis players playing exhibition matches to paying audiences. The
most notable of these early professionals were the American Vinnie Richards and the
Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen. Once a player turned pro he or she was no longer permitted
to compete in the major (amateur) tournaments.
In 1968, commercial pressures and rumors of some amateurs taking money under the table
led to the abandonment of this distinction, inaugurating the Open Era, in which all players
could compete in all tournaments, and top players were able to make their living from tennis.
With the beginning of the Open Era, the establishment of an international professional tennis
circuit, and revenues from the sale of television rights, tennis's popularity has spread
worldwide, and the sport has shed its middle-class English-speaking image (although it is
acknowledged that this stereotype still exists).
In 1954, Van Alen founded the International Tennis Hall of Fame, a non-profit museum in
Newport, Rhode Island. The building contains a large collection of tennis memorabilia as well
as a hall of fame honouring prominent members and tennis players from all over the world.
Each year, a grass court tournament and an induction ceremony honoring new Hall of Fame
members are hosted on its grounds.
