April 2000
Nobody ever invented tennis. The game’s main features have evolved over nine centuries -the court itself, the racquets, balls, scoring system and other rules - having been standardized since around 1600. The oldest indoor court in existence today, at Hampton Court Palace in England, was built by Charles I in 1625 (on the site of Henry VIII’s earlier court) and is still widely used for championship play. An outdoor court as Falkland Palace in Scotland celebrated its 450th year of play in 1989. Tennis started as a form of handball ("Jeu de Paume"), played by monks in the cloisters of French and Italian monasteries in the 11th century. The design of today’s indoor courts, with it’s sloping penthouse roof, galleries and other openings, clearly originates from the architecture of cloisters and courtyards. The original balls were, as now made of bound cloth or hair covered with stitched felt.
With the development of gloves, and later wood and strung racquets, came heavier balls, standardized court dimensions and scoring. By the 13th century tennis was evidently the sport of leisured French clerics - so much so that it was the times prohibited by church authorities.
In the 14th century the game began to be played more by kings and nobles than the clergy. From France, which gave tennis much of it’s vocabulary (including the name, derived from "tenez", the server’s warning that the ball was on its way), the game spread to England and Scotland and had its many royal devotees. Henry VIII was perhaps the best known, but others were just as keen. By the 16th and 17th centuries, tennis was clearly the most popular ball game in Europe - and not just with aristocrats. Paris alone had around 250 tennis courts in the mid 1500s. No wonder various monarchs tried to prohibit commoners from playing tennis rather than attending to their military and religious duties.
The second half of the 19th century marked a major revival of the game in Britain. Tennis courts were built, with today’s dimensions, not just at the country estates of wealthy families, but at new urban clubs to cater to the burgeoning growth of competitive sports in Victorian Britain. Lawn tennis also took off internationally in the mid 19th century spreading to Australia and the United States. Men and Women participated in tennis making tennis one of the court as we now it today (Lawn tennis) came into being in the mid 19th century and has been around ever since.Wimbledon held it’s first championships in 1879 and has continued to this day.