History of tennis

Most historians believe that tennis originated in the monastic cloisters in northern France in the 12th century, but the ball was then struck with the palm of the hand, hence the name jeu de paume (lit.

The Tennis Court Oath (Serment du Jeu de Paume) was a pivotal event during the first days of the French Revolution; it was a pledge signed by 576 of the 577 members from the Third Estate who were locked out of a meeting of the Estates-General on 20 June 1789.

[10] The first known appearance of the word in English literature is by poet John Gower in his poem titled 'In Praise of Peace' dedicated to King Henry IV and composed in 1400; "Of the tenetz to winne or lese a chase, Mai no lif wite er that the bal be ronne".

Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's round table, plays tennis against a group of 17 giants in The Turke and Gowin (c.

[21] Francis I of France (1515–1547) was an enthusiastic player and promoter of real tennis, building courts and encouraging play among the courtiers and commoners.

In 1555 an Italian priest, Antonio Scaino da Salothe, wrote the first known book about tennis, Trattato del Giuoco della Palla.

[25] One of the most striking early references appears in a painting by Giambattista Tiepolo entitled The Death of Hyacinth (1752–1753), in which a strung racquet and three tennis balls are depicted.

Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara translated it into Italian in 1561 and replaced the ancient game of discus in the original text with pallacorda or tennis, which had achieved a high status at the courts in the middle of the 16th century.

Tiepolo's painting, displayed at the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid, was ordered in 1752 by German count Wilhelm Friedrich Schaumburg Lippe, who was an avid tennis player.

An epitaph in St Michael's Church, Coventry, written circa 1705 read, in part:[27] Here lyes an old toss'd Tennis Ball: Was racketted, from spring to fall, With so much heat and so much hast, Time's arm for shame grew tyred at last.

The lawyer and memoirist William Hickey recalled that in 1767 "in the summer we had another club, which met at the Red House in Battersea fields, nearly opposite Ranelagh....

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 racquets and a ball of wind and played it on a croquet lawn in Edgbaston.

And, after a running series of articles and letters in the British sporting magazine The Field, and a meeting at London's Marylebone Cricket Club, the official rules of lawn tennis were promulgated by that Club in 1875, which preserved none of the aspects of the variations that Wingfield had dreamed up and named Sphaeristikè (Greek: σφαιριστική, that is, "sphere-istic", an ancient Greek adjective meaning "of or pertaining to use of a ball, globe or sphere"), which was soon corrupted to "sticky".

[40] Innumerable histories claim that in 1874, Mary returned from Bermuda on board the ship S.S. Canima and introduced lawn tennis to the United States,[41] setting up supposedly the first tennis court in the United States on the grounds of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club, which was near where the Staten Island Ferry Terminal is today.

[61] The rules the association promulgated in 1924 have remained remarkably stable in the ensuing century, the one major change being the addition of the tie-break system designed by James Van Alen.

After she was turned down, she donated a trophy in 1923 that would be known as the Wightman Cup, awarded in an annual match between the two strongest women's tennis nations of the time, the United States and Great Britain.

[63] Wightman's original idea for a worldwide women's team tournament would bear fruit more than 40 years later in 1962, when Nell Hopman persuaded the ITF to begin sponsoring such an event.

[68] In 1968, a few professionals were independent, including Lew Hoad, Mal Anderson, Luis Ayala, and Owen Davidson, but most of the best players were under contract.

George McCall operated the National Tennis League (NTL) and managed Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Andrés Gimeno, Pancho Gonzales, Fred Stolle and Roy Emerson.

Meanwhile, Dave Dixon (later succeeded by Lamar Hunt) ran the World Championship Tennis (WCT) and managed the "Handsome Eight": John Newcombe, Tony Roche, Nikola Pilić, Roger Taylor, Pierre Barthès, Earl "Butch" Buchholz, Cliff Drysdale and Dennis Ralston.

This would encourage the best players to compete regularly in the series, so that they could share in the bonus at the end and qualify for a special championship tournament that would climax the year.

[citation needed] By then, the rivalry between the two groups became so intense that Rosewall, Gimeno, Laver, Emerson and some other WCT players boycotted the 1971 US Open (although Newcombe played and lost in the first round to Kodes).

During the year, the ILTF banned Nikola Pilić from 1973 Wimbledon, due to Pilic's alleged refusal to play in Yugoslavia's Davis Cup tie against New Zealand.

They established the ATP Tour, and packaged the nine most prestigious events as the "Championship Series – Single Tournament Week", and beginning in 1996, as the "Super Nine".

[citation needed] Women's professional tennis began in 1926, when world number one female player Suzanne Lenglen accepted $50,000 for a series of matches against three-time U.S. Champion Mary K. Browne.

In 1947, women professionals were again in action with a short-lived series of exhibition matches between Pauline Betz and Sarah Palfrey Cooke, both U.S. National Champions.

Althea Gibson turned professional in 1958 and joined with Karol Fageros ("the Golden Goddess") as the opening act for the Harlem Globetrotters for one season.

There was virtually no further women's professional tennis until 1967, when promoter George McCall signed Billie Jean King, Ann Jones, Françoise Dürr, and Rosie Casals to join his tour of eight men for two years.

In 1970, promoter for the Pacific Southwest Championships in Los Angeles Jack Kramer offered the women only $7,500 in prize money versus the men's total of $50,000.

Gladys Heldman, American publisher of World Tennis magazine, responded with a separate women's tour under the sponsorship of Virginia Slims cigarettes.