The history of tennis

French monks

Some historians date tennis as far back as Egyptian times.

They say the Arabic word for the palm of the hand, rahat, is the origin of the word racket.

But the most common view is that it was a crude courtyard ball game invented by 11th or 12th century French monks.

The name tennis is said to come from the French word 'Tenez!' (from the verb tenir meaning 'to take').

It means 'take this', which the monks would yell as they served the ball with their hand.

Roland Garros: French tennis the modern way

The unusual word love, for zero, is also said to derive from the French 'oeuf', which means egg.

The game became popular as rich aristocrats learned the game from the monks.

The nobles modified their courtyards into indoor courts and developed gloves and then bats to hit the ball, which were made of cork wrapped in string or cloth and later, leather.

Some accounts say that by the 13th century there were as many as 1,800 indoor courts.

By 1500, a wooden frame racket laced with gut strings made from sheep's intestines was in common use - together with a cork ball weighing around three ounces.

Henry VIII
Tennis became so popular that the Pope tried, but failed, to ban the game.

But it had many noble fans, including Henry VII and VIII who built more courts (including one of the few surviving courts, built at Hampton Court Palace in 1625).

However the game of 'court' or 'real' tennis, as seen in the picture, is very different from the popular, global sport we know as tennis today.

In 'real tennis' the ball is hit around a series of walls with rooved galleries.

Players win points by hitting the ball into netted windows beneath the rooves.

At Hampton Court, the most points are gained for hitting a wooden portrait of Henry VIII.

The court is marked with scoring lines and the net is five feet high at each end, though it droops to three feet in the middle.

The game's popularity dwindled during the turbulent 1700s but in 1850 something happened which sparked the development of modern-day tennis.

1874: Curvy courts
Charles Goodyear invented a process for rubber called vulcanisation which among other things made the material more bouncy.

So that meant tennis balls could be used outdoors on grass which called for an entirely new set of rules.

In London in 1874, Major Charles Wingfield patented the equipment and rules for a game which he called Sphairistiké, the Greek for 'playing at ball'.

Wingfield claimed it was based on an ancient Greek game which combined many elements of the existing indoor racket sports of badminton, court tennis and squash.

Wingfield's original court was shaped like an hourglass and shorter than the modern court.

His rules were also much criticised and he changed them in 1875.

1877: Wimbledon tournament
The final piece of the historical jigsaw was the intervention of the All England Club Croquet.

The club decided to hold a tennis tournament and the organising committee ditched Wingfield's odd-shaped court.

They decided to use a rectangular one, similar to that used in the game of croquet which was very popular at the time.

The first champion, Spencer Gore, won a prize of 12 guineas (about £12).
The club was renamed the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club (still its official title) and effectively took over development of the game.

By 1882 the committee had made many more changes to Wingfield's game by:

lowering the net
allowing overarm serving
reducing the size of the service box
introducing the 'let' rule
The rules have remained virtually the same ever since - the only major change being the introduction of the tiebreak rule in 1971.

Modern day industry
By the start of the 21st century tennis had become a multi-billion pound industry and one of the most widely played sports in the world.

The International Tennis Federation which governs the game has 198 National Associations - more than most international sporting federations.

Member nations include countries from every continent such as Australia, Brazil, China, France and Mali.

The professional tour has four major tournaments; the Australian Open which starts in January, the French Open which starts in May, Wimbledon which starts in June and the US Open which starts in August.

Top male players can earn up to $4m a year on the men's ATP Tour.

Women's tennis is also big business - America's Venus Williams earnt $2.5m in prize money alone in 2001 competing on the WTA Tour.

The best players can also compete for their countries in the Davis Cup for men and Fed Cup for women.

Davis cup was named after American tennis player Dwight Filley Davis and was first played between the USA and Great Britain in 1900.

The Fed Cup began in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ITF.

Both are now global competitions involving nearly 140 countries for Davis Cup and nearly 100 for Fed Cup.