1873 ▪ LAWN TENNIS ▪ Major Walter Wingfield invented a version of Real Tennis that can be played outdoors on a lawn. The game was called “Sphairistike” (Greek for “playing ball”) and first introduced it to Wales (UK). Played on hourglass courts on the lawns of the mansion by wealthy Englishmen. This is where today`s tennis really developed. Wingfield trades Sphairistike in boxes with two net posts, a net, rackets and Indian rubber balls, as well as instructions on how to design the field and play the game. Wingfield boxing launched the modern form of tennis, although the only thing that didn`t work was the name, and Wingfield soon realized that his subtitle “grass tennis” was much better than the Greek word “sphairistike”. The difference between long tennis and grass tennis is usually the playing surface. Grass tennis is usually played on grass courts, in addition to various surfaces such as hard and sand courts. Long tennis can be played on a concrete surface. Today, both sports are called “tennis”. For example, real tennis balls (long tennis balls) are heavier than grass tennis balls. Even the balls used in long tennis are handmade. The modern game of tennis dates back to a medieval game called jeu de paume, which began in the France of the 12th century.

It was originally played with the palm of the hand, and rackets were added in the 16th century. If two chases are set or if a hunt is pending and the score is at the match point, the change of tennis players ends. Although the evidence on the court is thin, it is believed that the game of tennis dates back thousands of years, with several signs suggesting that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans played precursors of tennis. For example, the Arabic word for the palm of the hand is rahat, similar to the word racket, while the Egyptian city of Tinnis again has a resemblance to tennis. Other substantial evidence dates back to around 1000, when French monks began playing a ball game on the field. This sport, practiced against the walls of their monastery or above a rope suspended above a courtyard, took the name of I de paume – “game of the hand”. According to this theory, the word “tennis” was coined by these monks who shouted the word “tenez”, the French word for “take”, while serving the ball. Despite all these innovations, the game of “court” or “real” tennis, as it is called today, was incredibly different from the global sport we know today as tennis. The games were played in narrow indoor courts, where the ball was played from walls with covered galleries and a series of openings. The players scored points by hitting the ball into the windows of the net under the roofs, with the net five feet high at the ends and three feet high in the middle, resulting in a pronounced sagging.

While tennis can be enjoyed by players of virtually any skill level, high-level competition is a tough test for shooting and endurance, rich in stylistic and strategic diversity. From its origins as a garden party game for checkers in walknochenkorsetts and reinforced skirts and men in long white flannels, it has evolved into a physical chess game in which players attack and defend, exploiting angles and technical weaknesses with very different tempo and rotational moves. Tournaments offer tens of millions of dollars in prizes each year. In 1966, for example, TIME cited James Van Alen, then president of the Tennis Hall of Fame, as blaming the scoring system for the fact that “players outnumber spectators” in American tennis. Perhaps, the story thought, “the International Grass Tennis Federation, which controls amateur tennis, will fall in love.” Many tennis fans, players and commentators simply began to call the sport simply tennis, as turf was not the only surface used. The ancient sport of tennis began as a tennis court and was played throughout Europe in the courtyards of ancient castles. Somewhere in this huge and great nation, there is undoubtedly a strong, agile and highly competitive youth who could be the best tennis player the world has ever seen. This boy himself may never know. Or even care,” TIME noted in 1967.

“Few things that surround tennis today should appeal to him a lot. For starters, there`s the points system. In fact, most tennis historians believe that the real reason for this strange score is an early French version of the game, Jeu de Paume. The course had 45 feet on either side of the net and the player started at the back and advanced every time he scored a point. However, if the tennis ball falls below six yards on the second rebound, there is no need to play a shot and the point is earned by the receiving player (or server). Grass tennis should be a modern form of long tennis (real tennis). 1888 ▪ LTA & History of the Tennis Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) founded to maintain the new rules and standards of tennis ▪. The modern game of tennis dates back to a medieval game called jeu de paume, which began in the France of the 12th century.

It was originally played with the palm of the hand, and rackets were added in the 16th century. With its strong association with the competition traditions of the French court, Wilson says, tennis has been very stylized from the beginning. Over the following centuries, the game experienced periods of incredible popularity, with more than 1,000 tennis courts in Paris in the 16th century. Although it is known to be popular among kings (Henry VIII. Was a remarkable and enthusiastic player, and the tennis court oath of the revolutionary French was taken on an indoor court in Versailles), it was also appreciated among citizens and monks. But the reasons for this counting method were already unclear at that time. (There`s also a lot to speculate about the origin of the English word tennis, but it certainly originated in the 15th century.) In the 1520s, for example, a Jan van den Berghe had questions: “What has not been explained is how players can earn fifteen points for a single shot. After all, it`s a bit strange that they count or gain more than one point for a single shot. Why is one point not given for one SHOT and two for two shots? Over the centuries, various theories have relied on everything from complicated multiplication to the history of scoring systems in other games to measuring the distances between dividing lines in early places, but no clear answer could be found. 1880 ▪ BIRTH OF THE AERIAL SMASH ▪The aerial smash was introduced into the game for the first time in the history of tennis by the Renshaw brothers at Wimbledon. They dominated Wimbledon for a decade and won every championship except 1880 and 1887 in tennis history.

Overhead Smash is a shot that is played above the head and hits the ball down, strong and quickly in the opposite side of the field. Most long tennis courts are located about 110 x 39 feet (34 m x 12 m) above the penthouses and about 96 x 32 feet (29.3 m x 9.8 m) on the playing surface. In tennis, love is a word that represents a score of zero and has been used as such since the late 1800s. It is not clear how this use of love came about, but the most accepted theory is that those who have no points still played for the “love of the game” despite losing their score. The more popular tennis became, the more it developed. Playgrounds in the courtyard were converted to indoor courts, and the balls, which were originally made of wood, gave way to more hopped leather balls filled with cellulose. In its early days, it was played by hand, but over time people began to wear a glove, either with a strap between the fingers or a firm paddle, and finally a strap attached to a handle – a precursor to the racket. In 1500, a wooden frame racket furrowed with sheep intestines was in common use, as well as a cork ball weighing about three ounces. .