History of tennis

The Medieval form of tennis is termed as real tennis, a game that evolved over three centuries from an earlier ball game played around the 12th century in France that involved hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove.[18][19] 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, reaching its peak in the 16th century.

In 1437 at the Blackfriars, Perth, the playing of tennis indirectly led to the death of King James I of Scotland, when the drain outlet, through which he hoped to escape assassins, had been blocked to prevent the loss of tennis balls.[20] James was trapped and killed.[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. His successor, Henry II (1547–59), was also an excellent player and continued the royal French tradition. In 1555 an Italian priest, Antonio Scaino da Salothe, wrote the first known book about tennis, Trattato del Giuoco della Palla. Two French kings died from tennis related episodes—Louis X of a severe chill after playing and Charles VIII after hitting his head during a game.[22] King Charles IX granted a constitution to the Corporation of Tennis Professionals in 1571, creating the first pro tennis 'tour', establishing three professional levels: apprentice, associate, and master. A professional named Forbet wrote and published the first codification of the rules in 1599.[23]

Royal interest in England began with Henry V (1413–22). Henry VIII (1509–47) made the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at Hampton Court on a court he had built in 1530. It is believed that his second wife, Anne Boleyn, was watching a game when she was arrested and that Henry was playing when news of her execution arrived. During the reign of James I (1603–25) London had 14 courts.[24]

Drawing of a Lawn Tennis court as originally designed by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield in 1874

Cover of the first edition of the book about Lawn Tennis by Walter Clopton Wingfield, published in February 1874

Tennis doubles final at 1896 Olympic Games

Real tennis is mentioned in literature by William Shakespeare, who mentions "tennis balles" in Henry V (1599), when a basket of them is given to King Henry as a mockery of his youth and playfulness; the incident is also mentioned in some earlier chronicles and ballads.[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. The theme of the painting is the mythological story of Apollo and Hyacinth, written by Ovid. 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.

The game thrived among the 17th-century nobility in France, Spain, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire but suffered under English Puritanism. By the Age of Napoleon the royal families of Europe were besieged and real tennis was largely abandoned.[26] Real tennis played a minor role in the history of the French Revolution, through the Tennis Court Oath, a pledge signed by French deputies on a real tennis court, which formed a decisive early step in starting the revolution.

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.

In England, during the 18th and early 19th centuries as real tennis declined, three other racquet sports emerged: racquets, squash racquets and lawn tennis (the modern game).

The four majors or Grand Slam tournaments, the four biggest competitions on the tennis circuit, are Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open. Since the mid-1920s they became and have remained the more prestigious events in tennis.[4][49] Winning these four tournaments in the same year is called the Calendar Grand Slam (a term borrowed from bridge).[50]

The Championships, Wimbledon, were founded by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in 1877 to raise money for the club.[51] The first Championships were contested by 22 men and the winner received a Silver Gilt Cup proclaiming the winner to be "The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World".[52] The first Championships culminated a significant debate on how to standardize the rules. The following year, it was recognized as the official British Championships, although it was open to international competitors. In 1884 the Ladies Singles and Gentlemen's Doubles Championships were inaugurated, followed by the Ladies and Mixed Doubles in 1913.[53]

Tennis was first played in the U.S. on a grass court set up on the Estate of Col. William Appleton in Nahant, Massachusetts by James Dwight, Richard Dudley Sears and Fred Sears in 1874.[54] In 1881, the desire to play tennis competitively led to the establishment of tennis clubs.[4]

The first American National tournament was played in 1880 at the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club in New York. An Englishman named Otway Woodhouse won the singles match. There was also a doubles match which was won by a local pair. There were different rules at each club. The ball in Boston was larger than the one normally used in NY. On May 21, 1881, the United States National Lawn Tennis Association (now the United States Tennis Association) was formed to standardize the rules and organize competitions.[55]

The U.S. National Men's Singles Championship, now the US Open, was first held in 1881 at Newport, Rhode Island.[56] The U.S. National Women's Singles Championships were first held in 1887 in Philadelphia.[57]

The tournament was made officially one of the tennis 'Majors' from 1924 by the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF).

Tennis was predominantly a sport of the English-speaking world, dominated by Great Britain and the United States.[58] It was also popular in France, where the French Open dates to 1891 as the Championat de France International de Tennis. This tournament was not recognised as a Major or Grand Slam tournament until it was opened to all nationalities in 1925.

The Australian Open was first played in 1905 as The Australasian (Australia and New Zealand) Championships. Because of its geographic remoteness, historically, the event did not gain attendance from the top tennis players. It became one of the major tennis tournaments starting in 1924 (designated by the ILTF). In 1927, because of New Zealand tennis authorities releasing their commitments to the tournament, it became known as the Australian Championships. For most of the 1970s and the early 1980s, the event lacked participation from top ranked tennis professionals. Since its move to Melbourne Park in 1988, the Australian Open has gained the popularity of the other three majors.

In 1898, Dwight F. Davis of the Harvard University tennis team designed a tournament format with the idea of challenging the British to a tennis showdown.[59] The first match, between the United States and Great Britain was held in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900.[60] The American team, of which Dwight Davis was a part, surprised the British by winning the first three matches. By 1905 the tournament had expanded to include Belgium, Austria, France, and Australasia, a combined team from Australia and New Zealand that competed jointly until 1913.

The tournament initially was known as the International Lawn Tennis Challenge. It was renamed the Davis Cup following the death of Dwight Davis in 1945. The tournament has vastly expanded and, on its 100th anniversary in 1999, 130 nations competed.

1896 Summer Olympics men's singles final

1913 also saw 12 national tennis associations agree at a Paris conference to form the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), renamed in 1977 as the current International Tennis Federation (ITF).[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.[62]

The same year, tennis withdrew from the Olympics after the 1924 Games but returned 60 years later as a 21-and-under demonstration event in 1984. This reinstatement was credited by the efforts by the then ITF President Philippe Chatrier, ITF General Secretary David Gray and ITF Vice President Pablo Llorens as well as support from IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. The success of the event was overwhelming, and the IOC decided to reintroduce tennis as a full medal sport at Seoul in 1988.

The idea of a Davis Cup-style tournament for national women's teams is surprisingly old—it was first proposed in 1919 by Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman. 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. The first Federation Cup was played in 1963 as part of the ITF's 50th anniversary celebrations; it involved 16 countries and was played over one week. By the 1990s, over 70 nations competed each year, and regional qualifiers were introduced in 1992. In 1995, the ITF introduced a new Davis Cup-style format for the competition and rechristened it the Fed Cup.

In 1926, promoter C.C. Pyle established the first professional tour with a group of American and French players playing exhibition matches to paying audiences.[4][64] The most notable early professionals were American Vinnie Richards and Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen.[4][6] Players turning pro could not compete in the major (amateur) tournaments.[4]

Before the Open Era, the leading professional players were under contract with a professional promoter who controlled their appearances. For example, in 1926, Lenglen and Richards toured North America along with Paul Féret and Mary K. Browne under contract to Charles C. Pyle. The main events of the professional circuit comprised head-to-head competition and by-invitation Pro Championships, which were the equivalent of the Grand Slam tournaments on the professional circuit.

Suzanne Lenglen was the leading player in the first year of the professional circuit, and after she retired in February 1927, few female players played on the professional circuit before the Open Era.

In the years before the Open Era, professionals often played more frequently on head-to-head tours than in tournaments because tours paid much better than tournaments and the number of professional tournaments was small. For example, Fred Perry earned U.S. $91,000 ($1,852,440 today) in a 1937 North American tour against Ellsworth Vines but won only U.S. $450 ($9,355) for his 1938 victory at the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships. Vines probably never entered a tournament in 1937 and 1938. In 1937, Vines played 70 matches on two tours and no tournament matches. Even in the 1950s, some professionals continued to play tour matches. During his first five months as a professional (January through May 1957), Ken Rosewall played 76 matches on a tour against Pancho Gonzales but only 9 tournament matches. Joe McCauley determined that for 1952, only 7 professional tournaments were played by the top international players, and 2 other professional tournaments (the British Pro and the German Pro) were reserved for domestic players. Only during the 1960s did professional tournaments become more significant than tours.

In addition to head-to-head events several annual professional tournaments were called championship tournaments. The most prestigious was usually the Wembley Championship, held at the Wembley Arena in England, played between 1934 and 1990. The oldest was the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships, played between 1927 and 1999. Between 1954 and 1962, it was played indoors in Cleveland and was called the World Professional Championships. The third major tournament was the French Pro Championship, played between 1930 and 1968. The British and American championships continued into the Open Era but devolved to the status of minor tournaments after the late 1960s.

The Tournament of Champions was held between 1957 and 1959, the 1957 Australian editions taking place in Sydney White City and Melbourne Kooyong, while the U.S. editions in 1957, 1958 and 1959 took place at Forest Hills, Queens. There was also the Wimbledon Pro tournament held in August 1967, the first tournament where professional tennis players were allowed to play at Wimbledon.

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. Dave Dixon (later succeeded by Lamar Hunt) ran 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. In 1968, none of the original Handsome Eight WCT players participated in the French Open. In 1970, NTL players did not play in the Australian Open because their organization did not receive a guarantee. In 1970, neither WCT nor NTL players played in the French Open.

In the first two years of the Open Era, the National Tennis League and WCT promoters began to take control of the game. To outmaneuver them, Jack Kramer, the best player of the late 1940s / early 1950s, and at that time a promoter, conceived the Grand Prix tennis circuit in late 1969. He described it as:

. . . a series of tournaments with a money bonus pool that would be split up on the basis of a cumulative point system. 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.[69]

In 1970, none of the contract players participated in the French Open. The International Lawn Tennis Federation, alarmed by the control of the promoters, approved Kramer's Grand Prix. Twenty-seven tournaments, including the three Grand Slams (French Open, Wimbledon and US Open), were played that year, with Stockholm tournament ending on 1 November. The independent professional players along with a few contract players, entered the Grand Prix circuit. Contract players could play Grand Prix events provided their contracts allowed it, and that they had adequate time apart from their own circuit.

The first WCT tournaments were held in February 1968 and the first NTL tournaments in March 1969. In July 1970, the WCT absorbed the NTL.[70] At the end of 1970, a panel of journalists ranked the players, leading the WCT to send invitations to the 32 top men to play the 1971 WCT circuit: among the 32, Ilie Năstase, Stan Smith, Jan Kodeš, Željko Franulović and Clark Graebner stayed independent. In 1971, the WCT ran 20 tournaments, and concluded the year with the WCT Finals. In 1971, the majority of the best players still mainly played the WCT circuit. Thus, the 1971 Australian Open was a WCT competition whereas the French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open were ILTF Grand Prix events.

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). Bill Riordan (the future manager of Jimmy Connors) complicated matters further with a third professional tour, the U.S. Indoor Circuit. In 1972, the conflict between the ILTF and the WCT culminated in the ILTF banning the contract professional players from all ILTF Grand Prix events between January and July, which included the 1972 French Open and 1972 Wimbledon.

At the 1972 US Open in September, all the players attended and agreed to form a player syndicate to protect themselves from the promoters and associations, resulting in the creation of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

In 1973, there were four rival professional circuits: the WCT circuit, the Grand Prix circuit, the U.S. Indoor Circuit with Connors and Ilie Năstase and the European Spring Circuit with Năstase as their star. 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. In retaliation, 81 out of 84 of Pilic's fellow players who were ATP members, boycotted 1973 Wimbledon in response, stating that professional players should have the right of deciding whether to play Davis Cup matches or not. The only ATP players who refused to boycott 1973 Wimbledon were Ilie Năstase, Roger Taylor and Ray Keldie. They were later fined by the ATP for their participation in the tournament.

Between 1974 and 1978, any tennis player who participated in the nascent World Team Tennis, which conflicted with the European leg of the Grand Prix circuit, was banned by the French Tennis Federation from playing in the French Open in the same calendar year.[71]

In 1978 the ILTF Grand Prix and WCT circuits merged. However, In 1982, the WCT circuit separated again and created a more complex WCT ranking, similar to the ATP ranking. The WCT was not as successful in the 1980s, and the Grand Prix circuit became the primary circuit. The Grand Prix's governance was led by the Men's International Professional Tennis Council (also called the Men's Tennis Council).[72] The WCT Finals in Dallas continued being held until the end of the 1980s, and then disbanded with the creation of the ATP Tour for 1990.

The Open Era, the global professional circuit, and television helped tennis spread globally and shed its elitist, anglocentric image. In the United States, since the 1970s, courts have been a common feature of public recreational facilities. Accordingly, in the 1970s, the U.S. Open moved from the private West Side Tennis Club to a public park (the USTA National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows Park) that is accessible to anyone who buys a ticket.[73] About the same time, the ruling body's name changed from the United States Lawn Tennis Association to the United States Tennis Association.[74]

In 1990, the Association of Tennis Professionals, led by Hamilton Jordan, replaced the MTC as the governing body of men's professional tennis. 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". Twelve of the Grand Prix which were slightly less prestigious than the first nine events were renamed as the "Championship Series – Double Week" (meaning in most cases, 2 of those tournaments occurred the same week). Winning a Super Nine tournament was worth roughly half the points (370) of winning a Grand Slam tournament (750), while Championship Series tournaments were worth as much as 360 points depending on the total prize money. The format continued until 2000 at which time the Super Nine were renamed the Masters Series (the winner being awarded 500 points), occupying the rank below the Grand Slams (1000 points for the winner), and the Championship Series was renamed to simply the International Series Gold (worth 250 to 300 points for the winner). In 2000, the Grand Slam tournaments and the Masters Series tournaments became mandatory professional events if a player's ranking qualifies them for the tournament. Players were automatically entered and Masters and Slam events became the baseline for player rankings with up to an additional 5 tournaments also counted (18 in all plus the ATP Finals if they qualify). Before 2000, a players' best 14 tournaments were counted towards the ATP Point Rankings.

In 2009, the Masters events were renamed the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 with the Monte-Carlo Masters becoming a non-mandatory event, meaning a player could use his results from a lower-level tournament in place of it. International Series Gold became the ATP World Tour 500 and the remaining events became the ATP World Tour 250. The numbers in the tournament type name indicate the winners' ranking points. By way of comparison, a winner of one of the four Grand Slam tournaments is awarded 2000 points. In 2009, a greater emphasis began to be placed on winning a tournament, as the points awarded to the runner-up dropped from 70% of the champion's points to 60% (i.e. from 700 points to 600 points in a Masters 1000 event). Points also began to be awarded for Davis Cup singles play.