Lawn Tennis History – How It All Started

Tennis is one of the best games played by people of all walks of life for entertainment and other purposes. One’s skills and tactics are determining factors of an awesome pace in tennis game.  The following qualities such as speed, dexterity, coordination, and endurance are some of a lot that can be seen in a good tennis game.

The tennis game of today is slightly over 100 years of age. However, its genesis known as Real or Royal Tennis has quite a very long history of series of modifications here and there. This history is told of people from several perspectives but the core of the genesis and the series of development is always the same.

Real or Royal Tennis. “Origins”

The Medieval form of tennis is termed as real tennis. Real tennis evolved over three centuries from an earlier ball game played around the 12th century in France. This had some similarities to palla, fives, pelota, and handball, involving hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. One theory is that this game was played by monks in monastery cloisters, based on the construction and appearance of early courts, some of which were grass fields. By the 16th century, the glove had become a racquet, the game had moved to an enclosed playing area, and the rules had stabilized. Real tennis spread in popularity throughout royalty in Europe, reaching its peak in the 16th century.

Royal interest in England began with Henry V (1413–22.). Henry VIII (1509–47) made the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at Hampton Court on a court he built in 1530. In 1555 an Italian priest, Antonio Scaino da Salothe, wrote the first known book about tennis, Trattato del Giuoco della Palla. King Charles IX granted a constitution to the Corporation of Tennis Professionals in 1571, creating the first pro tennis ‘tour’, establishing three professional levels: apprentice, associate, and master. A professional named Forbet wrote and published the first codification of the rules in 1599.

The game thrived among the 17th century nobility in France, Spain, Italy, and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but suffered under English Puritanism. By the Age of Napoleon, the royal families of Europe were besieged and real tennis was largely abandoned. Real tennis played a minor role in the history of the French Revolution, through the Tennis Court Oath, a pledge signed by French deputies on a real tennis court, which formed a decisive early step in starting the revolution. In England, during the 18th century and early 19th century, real tennis died out and three other racquet sports emerged: racquets, squash racquets, and lawn tennis (the modern game).

Lawn Tennis Born

The modern sport is tied to two separate inventions.
Between 1859 and 1865, in Birmingham, England, Major Harry Gem, a solicitor, and his friend Augurio Perera, a Spanish merchant, combined elements of the game of rackets and the Spanish ball game Pelota and played it on a croquet lawn in Edgbaston. In 1872, both men moved to Leamington Spa and in 1874, with two doctors from the Warneford Hospital, founded the world’s first tennis club.
In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield devised a similar game for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd in Llanelidan, Wales. He based the game on the older real tennis. At the suggestion of Arthur Balfour, Wingfield invented the pastime and sport that has grown into the game that we play today, “lawn tennis,” and patented the game in 1874 with an eight-page rule book titled “Sphairistike or Lawn Ten-nis”, but he failed to succeed in enforcing his patent.

Terminologies Invented by Wingfield

Wingfield borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis:

• Tennis comes from the French tenez, the imperative form of the verb tenir, to hold: This was a cry used by the player serving in royal tennis, meaning “I am about to serve!” (rather like the cry “Fore!” in golf).
• Racquet comes from raquette, which derives from the Arabic rakhat, meaning the palm of the hand.
  • Deuce comes from à deux le jeu, meaning “to both is the game” (that is, the two players have equal scores).
• Love is widely believed to come from “l’oeuf”, the French word for “egg”, representing the shape of a zero.
• The convention of numbering scores “15”, “30” and “40” comes from quinze, trente and quarante, which to French ears makes an euphonious sequence, or from the quarters of a clock (15, 30, 45) with 45 simplified to 40.

Growth of Tennis – The Establishment of Clubs

Before the 1870’s different forms of tennis were played throughout Europe using ‘Local Rules.’ These ‘Local Rules’ not only defined how the game was played, but also the shape and size of the court. The court layouts, equipment and rules at this time were far from being standardized.

When the All England Croquet Club, formed in 1869, was failing to attract sufficient visitors, they
decided in 1875 to offer Lawn Tennis as an added attraction. The new game was an instant success, so
much so that in 1877 the name of All England Croquet club was changed to All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club (Wimbledon). On 9th June of this year, a notice was placed in the pages of The Field magazine for the world’s first ever official lawn tennis tournament, which was to be staged at Worple Road in Wimbledon. However, the Wimbledon committee decided to make their mark on the game and changed some of Major Wingfield’s rules. The first Championships were contested by 22 men and the winner received a silver guilt cup proclaiming the winner to be “The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World”. The following year it was recognized as the official British Championships, although it was open to international competitors. During this period lawn field was used for the game.

In 1881, the desire to play tennis competitively led to the establishment of tennis clubs, which led to the four Grand Slams, which are regarded as the most prestigious events in tennis circuit. Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open became and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis. Together these four events are called the Grand Slam (a term borrowed from bridge). In 1884 the Ladies Singles and Gentlemen Doubles Championships were inaugurated, followed by the Ladies and Mixed Doubles in 1913.

The Grand Slams – The Other Tournaments After Wimbledon

The U.S. National Men’s Singles Championship, now the U.S. Open, was first held in 1881 at Newport, Rhode Island. The U.S. National Women’s Singles Championships were first held in 1887. 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 surface of the tennis field used was modified from grass to clay har-tru, and finally to hard decoturf in 1978.

Tennis was predominantly a sport of the English-speaking world, dominated by the United States and Britain. It was also popular in France, where the French Open dates to 1891 as the Championat de France International de Tennis. The name was changed to Championnats Internationaux de France and finally to Tournoi de Roland Garros in 1928 as well as the field surface changed from grass to clay.

The Australian Open was first played in 1905 as The Australasian Championships. Because of its geographic remoteness, historically, the event did not gain attendance from the top tennis players. As late as the 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 Grand Slams. Its name was changed to Australian Open in 1969 while the tennis field surface was also modified to hard Plexicushion in 2008.

Lawn Tennis – Everywhere You Go!

By year 1913, The International Lawn Tennis Federation was founded. (Now the word ‘Lawn’ has been dropped from the title which was done in 1977) Since 1913 the game has grown throughout the world and is now played by 50 million people in 150 countries.