Edith Johnson and Dorothea Lambert Chambers face off within the 1910 Wimbledon match in London. Garden tennis — the sport we all know right this moment — began within the late nineteenth century however has its roots in a medieval sport.
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Paul Thompson/European Image Service/FPG/Archive Pictures/Getty Photographs
When you really feel like everyone seems to be speaking about tennis, you are undoubtedly not alone.
The game has surged in reputation for the reason that COVID-19 pandemic, when thousands and thousands flocked to their native courts for some socially distanced exercise.
And for a lot of, it wasn’t only a section: In accordance with the newest analysis shared by the US Tennis Affiliation, 1 in 12 People performed tennis as of 2024, the best share on document.
Even when you have not picked up a racket, perhaps you have seen — or heard the thrill about — the 2024 tennis movie Challengers, or seen an upswing in preppy “tenniscore” attire on retailer cabinets and social media.
Or maybe you are watching Wimbledon, the game’s oldest and most prestigious Grand Slam. This 12 months’s match — which ends Sunday — has been filled with drama, from a document variety of top-seed early eliminations to historic tech upgrades.
Whereas Wimbledon’s pristine grass courts, all-white competitor gown code, royal patronage and customary strawberries-and-cream snack might look a lot the identical as they did when the match started again in 1877, loads about tennis has modified alongside the best way.
“It is a super-old, historic sport,” says freelance author and editor Julie Kliegman, who’s engaged on a e book about transgender tennis participant Renée Richards. “Ensuring that the modern-day recreation is as wealthy as its historical past and much more thrilling and compelling, I feel the higher it’s for spectators, the higher it’s for execs … everybody wins.”
This week’s installment of Phrase of the Week appears on the evolution of tennis — each the phrase and the game.
The place did tennis come from?
An engraving of a tennis match from 1659.
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Hulton Archive/Getty Photographs
Essentially the most broadly accepted idea is that the game originated in France someday across the twelfth century and obtained its identify from the phrase that gamers would yell earlier than serving: “tenez,” which means to take or obtain.
“The argument goes that … tenez functioned as a type of verbal ritual, a good warning referred to as out by servers to their opponents earlier than beginning some extent,” explains Tennis.com. “By and by, English audio system picked up the sport and, presumably, the utterance.”
The earliest model of tennis was referred to as jeu de paume, or “recreation of the palm,” as a result of no rackets have been concerned till the sixteenth century (and that was solely after gamers tried out gloves, picket bats, paddles with handles and so forth).
The handball-esque sport was initially favored by medieval monks and knights however rapidly grew to become well-liked amongst French royalty — which is why it was sometimes performed indoors, like in palaces.
“By the 1500s, there have been apparently greater than a thousand tennis courts in France already,” says Kliegman. “It was meant for royalty all alongside, however commoners did benefit from the recreation as effectively.”
That unique model of tennis remains to be performed — on indoor, asymmetrical courts (suppose squash) — in some components of the world, together with the U.S., the place it is named “court docket tennis” or “actual tennis.” The fashionable recreation you are most likely picturing, with its grass, clay or arduous courts, has a distinct algorithm and identify altogether: “garden tennis.”
Garden tennis arose in 18th-century Britain, the place aristocrats most well-liked to entertain in their very own backyards quite than journey to indoor courts, based on the Worldwide Tennis Federation.
“Because of this, garden tennis quickly grew to become the chosen sport of the privileged courses and immense significance was positioned on correct etiquette and managed behaviour,” it explains.
Welsh inventor Walter Clopton Wingfield, then a retired British Military officer, is credited with pioneering the game round 1873. He designed, patented and manufactured tennis gear like nets, rackets and rubber balls. He named the game “sphairistike,” from the Greek phrase for “sphere,” however it did not precisely roll off the tongue.
Garden tennis, because it rapidly grew to become identified, reached the U.S. in 1874 and continued to unfold world wide. However the period of tennis as we all know it right this moment would not begin for an additional century.
How has tennis modified over time?
Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in three straight units within the “Battle of the Sexes” in September 1973.
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Ann Limongello/Walt Disney Tv through Getty Photographs
Tennis historian Joel Drucker says the only greatest change for the reason that daybreak of garden tennis was the professionalization of the game, which occurred in 1968.
“1968 is type of the B.C./A.D. 12 months within the historical past of tennis,” he explains.
Earlier than that, solely amateurs have been allowed to play in prestigious tournaments like Wimbledon, and so they could not make any cash doing so — at the least not legally. Skilled gamers did exist however may compete solely in separate, invitation-only occasions and excursions.
A confluence of things — together with the rise of colour TV, the local weather of social change within the Sixties and selections by governing teams just like the British Garden Tennis Affiliation — helped usher within the “Open Period” and, importantly, the inflow of prize cash and company sponsorships.
“It modified tennis from this feudalistic surroundings of amateurs and golf equipment,” Drucker says. “Now, tennis is within the market. … All kinds of issues modified, as a result of then comes cash.”
Cash, he mentioned, allowed gamers to each play and take higher care of themselves year-round, hiring groups of specialists in areas like sports activities science and diet. It led to the creation of higher services — for coaching and spectating — in addition to higher rackets, courts and extra.
This was additionally a time when the game opened as much as folks of various backgrounds, like ladies and racial minorities.
In 1968, Arthur Ashe grew to become the primary Black American man to win a U.S. Open singles title. The Nineteen Seventies noticed the formation of the Virginia Slims tour (which later grew to become the Girls’s Tennis Affiliation tour) and the struggle for equal pay, encapsulated by Billie Jean King’s victory within the “Battle of the Sexes.”
All 4 Grand Slams have required equal prize cash for women and men since 2007. And Black ladies like Venus and Serena Williams are credited with serving to encourage a brand new era of gamers. All types of individuals can take up and excel in tennis now, Kliegman says — a far cry from the game’s origins.
“It is seen as an inaccessible type of nation club-y sport, however I feel over time it has change into at the least comparatively extra accessible,” they are saying. “You do not truly should be a member of a rustic membership or royalty or something to take pleasure in it anymore.”
Why does tennis matter right this moment?
Coco Gauff of the U.S. kisses her trophy after profitable the ladies’s singles on the 2025 French Open in June.
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Clive Brunskill/Getty Photographs
That does not imply there is not room for enchancment in tennis and its tradition.
As of late, many large questions are inclined to revolve round subjects like expertise — that is the primary time Wimbledon is utilizing digital line calling as a substitute of human judges, not with out controversy — and psychological well being, with Japan’s Naomi Osaka changing into probably the most distinguished advocates not solely in tennis however in all of sports activities.
Kliegman says it is thrilling and inspiring that such conversations are occurring in tennis, as a result of it’ll hopefully make younger folks — from children to school athletes — really feel much more accepted within the sport.
“I feel the extra people who find themselves curious about it, the higher,” they add. “And the [more] we will get these pipelines to the professionals extra lively and extra sturdy, the higher the tip product goes to be for everybody.”
Simply this month, Wimbledon noticed a historic variety of upsets in each singles attracts — the primary time within the Open Period that eight prime 10 gamers went down within the opening spherical of a Grand Slam.
Drucker factors out that it is an unusually attention-grabbing second in professional tennis, between the retirements of legends like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and the emergence of latest stars and potential rivalries, comparable to between Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Italy’s Jannik Sinner.
It is an particularly thrilling time to be a U.S. fan: The primary two Grand Slam ladies’s singles titles of 2025 each went to People, Madison Keys and Coco Gauff. And whereas there are a variety of top-seeded American males, one hasn’t received a Grand Slam singles title since 2003.
Most of the greatest names on the tennis circuit will quickly convey their abilities stateside. The Mubadala Citi DC Open involves the nation’s capital in late July, and the U.S. Open — the final Grand Slam of the 12 months — arrives in New York in late August.
