Tennis History

So here’s a page on tennis history. I’ll be honest, I am no expert on the ancient history of tennis, and so I obtained some of this information from the friends at tennis.about.com. I am, however, quite familiar with the modern history of the game, in other words tennis in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

It is quite disputed, the tennis history, and one side believes that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans played a precursor to tennis. Drawings or descriptions of any tennis-like games have not been discovered, but a few Arabic words dating from ancient Egyptian times are cited as evidence. The theory says that the name tennis derives from the Egyptian town of Tinnis alongside the Nile and the word racquet evolved from the Arabic word for palm of the hand, rahat.Aside from these two words, evidence for any form of tennis preceding the year 1000 is lacking, and most historians credit the first origins of the game to 11th or 12th century French monks, who began playing a crude handball against their monastery walls or over a rope strung across a courtyard.

The game took on the name jeu de paume, which means "game of the hand." Many who dispute more ancient origins argue that tennis derived from the French tenez, which meant something to the effect of "take this," said as one player would serve to the other. As the game became more popular, courtyard-playing areas began to be modified into indoor courts, where the ball was still played off the walls. After bare hands were found too uncomfortable, players began using a glove, then either a glove with webbing between the fingers or a solid paddle, followed by webbing attached to a handle -- essentially a racquet. Rubber balls were still centuries away, so the ball was a wad of hair, wool, or cork wrapped in string and cloth or leather, then in later years, hand-stitched in felt to look something like a modern baseball.

The nobility learned the game from the monks, and some accounts report as many as 1800 courts in France by the 13th century. The game became such a popular diversion, both the Pope and Louis IV tried unsuccessfully to ban it. It soon spread to England, where both Henry VII and Henry VIII were avid players who promoted the building of more courts.

The game's popularity dwindled almost to zero during the 1700s, but in 1850, Charles Goodyear invented a vulcanization process for rubber, and during the 1850s, players began to experiment with using the bouncier rubber balls outdoors on grass. An outdoor game was, of course, completely different from an indoor game played off walls, so several new sets of rules were formulated.

In later tennis history, 1874, Major Walter C. Wingfield patented in London the equipment and rules for a game fairly similar to modern tennis. In the same year, the first courts appeared in the United States. By the following year, equipment sets had been sold for use in Russia, India, Canada, and China.Croquet was highly popular at this time, and the smooth croquet courts proved readily adaptable for tennis. Wingfield's original court had the shape of an hourglass, narrowest at the net, and it was shorter than the modern court. His rules were subjected to considerable criticism, and he revised them in 1875, but he soon left the further development of the game to others.In 1877, the All England Club held the first Wimbledon tournament, and its tournament committee came up with a rectangular court and a set of rules that are essentially the game we know today. The net was still five feet high at the sides, a carry over from the game's indoor ancestor, and the service boxes were 26 feet deep, but by 1882, the specifications had evolved to their current form.

Modern Tennis History

The big division in modern tennis history comes in 1968 , when tennis officially entered what is now known as the Open Era. Let me explain. Before 1968, tennis was split between being an amateur and a professional sport. If you were an amateur, you did not receive prize money from tournaments, and you were supported by your country’s tennis association. Therefore, this was not really a way to make a wealthy living for yourself, as amateur players were at the mercy of their respective tennis associations. Therefore, the lifespan of a tennis player at the amateur level was usually until the time when the player decided that they needed to start earning some money for themselves.

At that time in tennis history, the player would turn professional, and they were now not allowed to compete in tennis tournaments anymore, such as the Australian Open or Wimbledon. They would form a world tour, travelling with other professionals and playing exhibition in such odd places as ice hockey arenas, basketball courts and high school gymnasiums.

So just about the biggest accomplishment in tennis is winning the Grand Slam, meaning to win all four grand slam events (Aussie, French, Wimbledon and US Open) in one calendar year. As tennis history goes, Donald Budge first did this on the men’s side in 1938, and Rod Laver did it twice, in 1962, and 1969. It has not been done since. On the women’s side, Margaret Court completed the Grand Slam in 1970, and Steffi Graf did it in 1988. Graf, however, completed what is known as the Golden Slam, because she won all four majors and topped it off with a gold medal at the Seoul Olympics.

So in 1968, tennis abolished the amateur/professional system, and became “open.” All players were now allowed to earn prize money and compete in all tournaments. In tennis circles today, you will hear endless arguments about who the best tennis player in tennis history is. It is so difficult, and in my opinion nearly impossible, to decide this, since tennis history before 1968 did not include some of the very best players in the sport. People say that there’s no way that you can compare Laver with modern greats such as Sampras, Federer or Borg, because the game has changed so much and become so much more competitive. They forget that with a guy like Laver, it’s more complicated. Rod Laver completed the Grand Slam for the first time in 1962. The year after, he turned professional, traveling worldwide and playing exhibitions with greats such as Jack Kramer, Pancho Gonzalez and Lew Hoad. Therefore, between the age of 25 and 31, very much the prime of a tennis player’s career, Laver was not playing the major international tournaments. When tennis entered the Open Era in 1969, then, he completed the Grand Slam once again, at the age of 31. So imagine what he could have done in those years before the Open Era.

This is the world of modern tennis historians, then: deciding who was the greatest ever, while doing justice to the remarkable changes in the format of the tennis game in the last fifty years. It is only going to get more interesting, of course, with tennis becoming more popular and enjoying an increase in prize money every year.

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