Quezi

Australian Open - courtesy * etoile - CC-BY

There is some dispute about the origins of Tennis.  One side believes that the ancient Egyptians played a precursor to tennis.  Their theory claims that the name tennis came from the Egyptian town of Tinnis and the word racquet evolved from the Arabic word for palm of the hand, rahat.

That is not much evidence, so we will begin this history in the 11th or 12th century when French monks began playing a form of handball over a rope strung across a courtyard.  When bare hands were found too uncomfortable, players began using a glove, then a glove with webbing between the fingers or a solid paddle, followed by webbing attached to a handle, a racquet. The nobility learned the game from the monks, and some accounts report as many as 1800 courts in France by the 13th century.  By 1500, a wooden frame racquet strung with sheep gut was in common use, as was a cork-cored ball weighing around three ounces.  It should be noted that during this time tennis courts were indoors and the walls were a major factor in the game.

The game’s popularity dwindled to almost zero during the 1700s, but in 1850, Charles Goodyear invented the vulcanization process for rubber.  During the 1850s, players started to experiment with the bouncier rubber balls outdoors on grass.  An outdoor game was, of course, completely different from an indoor game played off walls.  New rules had to be made.

In 1874, Major Walter C. Wingfield patented the equipment and rules for a game fairly close to modern tennis. At about the same time, the first courts (indoors and out) appeared in the United States after several Americans who had played in England, built a court in Boston.  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, carried over from the game’s indoor ancestor, and the service boxes were 26 feet deep, but by 1882, specifications had evolved to their current state.

Termed as lawn tennis (as opposed to ‘court tennis’ which was the indoor version), the rules of the game were heavily borrowed from other field and lawn games and also from the royal version of tennis which is also called ‘real tennis.’

Just like modern golf, modern tennis is largely a product of the 19^th century.

For more information about the history of tennis