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This
website is designed to educate you and inspire your
passion for tennis, Hey did you know that Tennis comes from the French tenez pronounced ten-ay? It is the imperative form of the verb "tenir" and means hold! or take! This was a call used by the player serving in royal tennis, meaning "I am about to serve!" I am about to ace you! Check out all this history and rich power behind this amazing game. Tennis is an evolution... always changing always getting better. Whats next...Lazer Racquets? Ace to the Gift Shop and Win Your Game! Ancient and Powerful Influences Tennis can be traced as far back as the ancient Greek game of sphairistike, and is mentioned in literature as far back as the Middle Ages in The Second Shepherds' Play, in which shepherds gave three gifts, including a tennis ball, to the newborn Christ.[1] Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's round table, plays tennis with a group of giants in The Turke and Gowin.[2] The Medieval form of tennis is termed real tennis.
Real tennis evolved over three centuries from an
earlier ball game played around the 12th century
in France. This had some similarities to palla,
fives, pelota, or handball, involving hitting a
ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. One
theory is that this game was played by monks in
monastery cloisters, based on the construction and
appearance of early courts. Later it was introduced
into Italy by French Knights in 1325. By the 16th
century, the glove had become a racquet, the game
had moved to an enclosed playing area, and the rules
had stabilized. Real tennis spread in popularity
throughout royalty in Europe and reached its peak
in the 16th century.
More history...
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France & England François I (1515-47) was an enthusiastic player and promoter of real tennis, building courts and encouraging play among the courtiers and commoners. His successor, Henri II (1547-59) was also an excellent player and continued the royal French tradition. During his reign, the first known book about tennis, Trattato del Giuoco della Palla was written in 1555 by an Italian priest, Antonio Scaino da Salo. Two French kings died from tennis related episodes--Louis X of a severe chill after playing and Charles VIII after being struck with a ball. [3] King Charles IX granted a constitution to the Corporation of Tennis Professionals in 1571, creating the first pro tennis 'tour', establishing three levels of professionals-- apprentice, associate, and master. The first codification of the rules of real tennis was written by a professional named Forbet and published in 1599.[4] Royal interest in England began with Henry V (1413-22)
but it was Henry VIII (1509-47) who made the biggest
impact as a young monarch, playing the game with
gusto at Hampton Court on a court he had built in
1530, and on several other courts in his palaces.
It is believed that his second wife Anne Boleyn
was watching a game of real tennis when she was
arrested and that Henry was playing tennis when
news was brought to him of her execution. During
the reign of James I (1603-25), there were 14 courts
in London. [5] Player
history... |
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Real tennis Real tennis is recorded in literature by William Shakespeare who mentions "tennis balles" in his play Henry V, when a basket of them is given to King Henry as a mockery of his youth and playfulness.[6]. One of the most striking early references to the game of tennis appears in a painting by Giambattista Tiepolo entitled The Death of Hyacinth (1752-1753) in which a stringed raquet and three tennis balls are depicted. The theme of the painting is the mythological story of Apollo and Hyacinth, written by Ovid and translated into Italian in 1561 by Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara who replaced the ancient game of discus throwing of the original text by that of pallacorda or tennis, which had achieved a high status as a form of physical exercise at the courts in the middle of the sixteenth century. Tiepolo's painting, displayed at the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid, was ordered in 1752 by a German counts Wilhelm Friedrich Schaumburg Lippe, who was known to be an avid tennis player. The game thrived among the 17th century nobility
in France, Spain, Italy, and in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, but suffered under English Puritanism. From
the 17th century we have engravings showing fine
ladies and gentlemen in full fancy dress using rackets
to hit a little hard ball across a court. Similar
games were played in ancient Greece, Egypt and by
the Incas in South America. By the Age of Napoleon,
the royal families of Europe were besieged and real
tennis was largely abandoned. [7] Real tennis played
a minor role in the history of the French Revolution,
through the Tennis Court Oath, a pledge signed by
French deputies in a real tennis court, which formed
a decisive early step in starting the revolution.
In England, during the 18th century and early 19th
century as real tennis died out, three other racquet
sports emerged-- racquets, squash racquets, and
lawn tennis (the modern game). In 1850, Charles
Goodyear invented a vulcanization process for rubber,
and during the 1850s, players began to experiment
with using the bouncier rubber balls outdoors on
grass. The racket was actually
invented in Italy in 1583. [?] More
history... |
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Birth of modern game 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 rackets and the Spanish ball game Pelota and played it on a croquet lawn in Edgbaston.[8][9] In 1872, both men moved to Leamington Spa and in 1874, with two doctors from the Warneford Hospital, founded the world's first tennis club.[10] The Courier of 23 July 1884 recorded one of the first tennis tournaments, held in the grounds of Shrubland Hall.[11] In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield devised a similar game for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales.[12] He based the game on the older Real tennis. At the suggestion of Arthur Balfour, Wingfield named it "lawn tennis,"[13] and patented the game [14] in 1874 with an eight-page rule book, titled "Sphairistike or Lawn Ten-nis". [15] But he failed to succeed, in enforcing his patent.[16] Wingfield borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis: Tennis comes from the French tenez,
the imperative form of the verb tenir, to hold or
take: This was a cry used by the player serving
in royal tennis, meaning "I am about to serve!"
(rather like the cry "Fore!" in golf).[17]
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