History of tennis - Wikipedia (1).pdf

History of tennis
The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis, invented in Croydon, now commonly known
simply as tennis, is the direct descendant of what is now denoted real tennis or royal tennis,
which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules. Most rules of
(lawn) tennis derive from this precursor and it is reasonable to see both sports as variations of
the same game. Most historians believe that tennis was originated in the monastic cloisters in
northern France in the 12th century, but the ball was then struck with the palm of the hand;
hence, the name jeu de paume ("game of the palm").[1] It was not until the 16th century that
rackets came into use, and the game began to be called "tennis." It was popular in England and
France, and Henry VIII of England was a big fan of the game, now referred to as real tennis.[2]

Many original tennis courts remain, including courts at Oxford, Cambridge, Falkland Palace in Fife
where Mary Queen of Scots regularly played, and Hampton Court Palace. Many of the French
courts were decommissioned with the terror that accompanied the French Revolution. The
Tennis Court Oath (Serment du Jeu de Paume) was a pivotal event during the first days of the
French Revolution. The Oath was a pledge signed by 576 of the 577 members from the Third
Estate who were locked out of a meeting of the Estates-General on 20 June 1789.
The Davis Cup, an annual competition between men's national teams, dates to 1900.[3] The
analogous competition for women's national teams, the Fed Cup, was founded as the Federation
Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the International Tennis
Federation, also known as the ITF.
Promoter C. C. Pyle created the first professional tennis tour in 1926, with a group of American
and French tennis players playing exhibition matches to paying audiences.[4][5] The most notable
of these early professionals were the American Vinnie Richards and the Frenchwoman Suzanne
Lenglen.[4][6]
Players turning pro cannot compete in the major (amateur) tournaments.[4]
In 1968, commercial pressures and rumors of some amateurs taking money under the table led
to the abandonment of this distinction, inaugurating the Open Era (see below), in which all players
could compete in all tournaments, and top players were able to make their living from tennis.[7]
Players on a roofless centre court in 2008

With the beginning of the Open Era, the establishment of an international professional tennis
circuit, and revenues from the sale of television rights, tennis's popularity has spread worldwide,
and the sport has shed its upper/middle-class English-speaking image[8] (although it is
acknowledged that this stereotype still exists).[8][9][10]
The word tennis came into use in English in the mid-14th century from Old French, via the Anglo-
Norman term Tenez, which can be translated as "hold!", "receive!" or "take!", a call from the
server to his opponent indicating that he is about to serve.[11] The first known appearance of the
word in English literature is by poet John Gower in his poem titled 'In Praise of Peace' dedicated
to King Henry IV and composed in 1400; "Of the tenetz to winne or lese a chase, Mai no lif wite
er that the bal be ronne". (Whether a chase is won or lost at tennis, Nobody can know until the
ball is run).[a][13][14][15][16]
Tennis is mentioned in literature as far back as the Middle Ages. In The Second Shepherds' Play
(c. 1500) shepherds gave three gifts, including a tennis ball, to the newborn Christ. Sir Gawain, a
knight of King Arthur's round table, plays tennis against a group of 17 giants in The Turke and
Gowin (c. 1500).[17][18]
Etymology
Origin
Real tennis racquets and balls. Cahusac at the Falkland Palace Royal Tennis Club.

Real 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 which involved hitting a ball
with a bare hand and later with a glove.[19][20] By the 16th century, the glove had become a
racket, 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.[21] James was trapped and killed.[22]
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.[23] 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.[24]
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 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.[25]

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.[26] 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 racket and three tennis balls are depicted. The painting's
theme 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 in 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.[27]
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:[28]
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 racket
sports emerged: racquets, squash racquets, and lawn tennis (the modern game).
Birth of lawn tennis

The lawyer and memoirist William Hickey recalled that in 1767 "in the summer we had another
club, which met at the Red House in Battersea fields, nearly opposite Ranelagh.... The game we
played was an invention of our own, and called field tennis, which afforded noble exercise.... The
field, which was of sixteen acres in extent, was kept in as high an order, and smooth as a bowling
green."[29]
The modern sport is tied to two separate inventions.
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 racquets and Basque
pelota and played it on a croquet lawn in Edgbaston.[30][31]
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, the Leamington Tennis Club.[32]
Augurio Perera's house in Edgbaston, Birmingham, where he and Harry Gem first played the modern game of lawn tennis
Amateur tennis match in Sweden, 1892.

In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designed an hourglass-shaped tennis court in
order to obtain a patent on his court (as the rectangular court was already in use and was
unpatentable). A temporary patent on this hourglass-shaped court was granted to him in
February, 1874, which he never renewed when it expired in 1877. It is commonly believed,
mistakenly, that Wingfield obtained a patent on the game he devised to be played on that type
of court, but in fact Wingfield never applied for nor received a patent on his game, although he
did obtain a copyright — but not a patent — on his rules for playing it. And, after a running series
of articles and letters in the British sporting magazine The Field, and a meeting at London's
Marylebone Cricket Club, the official rules of lawn tennis were promulgated by that Club in 1875,
which preserved none of the aspects of the variations that Wingfield had dreamed up and named
Sphaeristikè (Greek: σφαιριστική, that is, "sphere-istic", an ancient Greek adjective meaning "of or
pertaining to use of a ball, globe or sphere"), which was soon corrupted to "sticky". Wingfield
claimed that he had invented his version of the game for the amusement of his guests at a
weekend garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales in 1874, but research has
demonstrated that even his game was not likely played during that country weekend in
Wales.[33][34]
He had likely based his game on both the evolving sport of outdoor tennis and on
real tennis. Much of modern tennis terminology also derives from this period, for Wingfield and
others borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis, and applied
them to their variations of real tennis.[35] In the scholarly work Tennis: A Cultural History, Heiner
Gillmeister reveals that on December 8 1874, Wingfield had written to Harry Gem, commenting
that he had been experimenting with his version of lawn tennis for a year and a half.[36] Gem
himself had largely credited Perera with the invention of the game.
Wingfield did patent his hourglass court [37] in 1874, but not his eight-page rule book titled
"Sphairistike or Lawn Tennis",[38] but he failed in enforcing his patent.[39] In his version, the game
was played on an hourglass-shaped court, and the net was higher (4 feet 8 inches) than it is in
official lawn tennis. The service had to be made from a diamond-shaped box in the middle of one
side of the court only, and the service had to bounce beyond the service line instead of in front
of it. He adopted the rackets-based system of scoring where games consisted of 15 points
(called 'aces').[40]
None of these quirks survived the Marylebone Cricket Club's 1875 Rules of
Lawn Tennis that have been official, with periodic slight modifications, ever since then. Those
rules were adopted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club for the first Lawn Tennis
Championship, at Wimbledon in 1877 (the men who devised those rules were members of both
clubs). Wingfield does deserve great credit for popularizing the game of lawn tennis, as he
marketed, in one boxed set, all the equipment needed to play his or other versions of it,
equipment that had been available previously only at several different outlets. Because of this

convenience, versions of the game spread like wildfire in Britain, and by 1875 lawn tennis had
virtually supplanted croquet and badminton as outdoor games for both men and women.
Mary Ewing Outerbridge played the game in Bermuda at Clermont, a house with a spacious lawn in
Paget parish.[41] Innumerable histories claim that in 1874, Mary returned from Bermuda aboard
the ship S.S. Canima and introduced lawn tennis to the United States,[42] setting up supposedly
the first tennis court in the United States on the grounds of the Staten Island Cricket and
Baseball Club, which was near where the Staten Island Ferry Terminal is today.[43]
The club was
founded on or about March 22, 1872. She is also mistakenly said to have played the first tennis
game in the U.S. against her sister Laura in Staten Island, New York on an hourglass-shaped
court.[43]
However, all this would have been impossible, as the tennis equipment she is said to
have brought back from Bermuda was not available in Bermuda until 1875, and her next trip to
Bermuda, when it was available there, was in 1877. In fact, lawn tennis was first introduced in the
United States on a grass court on Col. William Appleton's Estate in Nahant, Massachusetts by Dr.
James Dwight ("the Father of American Lawn Tennis"), Henry Slocum, Richard Dudley Sears and
Sears' half-brother Fred Sears, in 1874.
Wingfield borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis:
Tennis comes from the French tenez, the plural imperative form of the verb tenir, to hold,
meaning "hold!", "receive!" or "take!", an interjection used as a call from the server to his
opponent to indicate that he is about to serve.[44]
Racket (or racquet) derives from the Arabic rakhat, meaning the palm of the hand.[45]
Deuce comes from à deux le jeu, meaning "to both is the game" (that is, the two players have
equal scores).[46]
The origin of the use of love for zero is disputed. It is ascribed to derive from l'œuf, French for
"the egg", traditionally representing the shape of a zero.[47][48]
Another possibility is that it
derives from the Dutch expression "iets voor lof doen", which means to do something for
praise, implying no monetary stakes.[49]
The reason for the numbering of scores being "15", "30" and "40" is unknown. Historical sources
suggest the system was originally 15, 30, 45 with the 45 simplified to 40 over time. Common
theories are that it originated from the quarters of a clock, or from gambling stakes.[46]
Terminology

Amateur tournaments
The Four Majors
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][50]
Winning these four
tournaments in the same year is called the Calendar Grand Slam (a term borrowed from
bridge).[51]
1877: Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon, were founded by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
in 1877 to raise money for the club.[52]
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".[53] 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.[54]
Tournaments and tours of the pre-Open Era

Name
1877: The Championships
Surface

1877: Grass
Venue change

1877: Worple Road, Wimbledon

1922: Church Road, Wimbledon
1881: U.S. Open
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.[55]
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.[56]
The U.S. National Men's Singles Championship, now the US Open, was first held in 1881 at
Newport, Rhode Island.[57] The U.S. National Women's Singles Championships were first held in
1887 in Philadelphia.[58]
The tournament was made officially one of the tennis 'Majors' from 1924 by the International
Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF).

Name change
1881: U.S. National Championship
1968: U.S. Open
Surface change

1881: Grass

1975: Clay Har-Tru

1978: Hard DecoTurf
Venue change (men's championship)

1881: Newport

1915: Forest Hills

1921: Germantown

1924: Forest Hills

1978: Flushing Meadows
1891/1925: French Open
Tennis was predominantly a sport of the English-speaking world, dominated by Great Britain and
the United States.[59]
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.

Name change
1891: Championnat de France

1925: Championnats Internationaux de France

1928: Tournoi de Roland Garros

Surface change

1891: Clay and Sand

1909: Clay

Venue change

1891–1908: shared by Tennis Club de Paris/Ile de Puteaux, Paris/Racing Club de France

1909: Societe Athletique de la Villa Primrose, Bordeaux

1910: Racing Club de France, Paris

1925: Stade Français, Paris

1926: Racing Club de France, Paris

1927: Stade Français, Paris

1928: Stade Roland Garros, Paris

1905: Australian Open
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.

Name change
1905: Australasian Championships

1927: Australian Championships

1969: Australian Open
Surface change

1905: Grass

1988: Hard Rebound Ace

2008: Hard Plexicushion

2020: Hard GreenSet
Venue change

1905: Melbourne
1906: Christchurch and alternated in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. In 1912 at
Hastings
1972: Kooyong

1988: Melbourne Park
The Davis Cup
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.[60] The first match, between the
United States and Great Britain was held in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900.[61]
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.
International Tennis Federation

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).[62]
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.[63]
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 Fed Cup
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.[64]
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.
1896 Summer Olympics men's singles final

The professional circuit
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][65]
The most notable early
professionals were American Vinnie Richards and Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen.[4][6]
Once a
player turned pro, he or she 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.
Pro tours
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 ($1,638,211
today) in a 1937 North American tour against Ellsworth Vines but won only U.S. $450 ($8,273) 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.
Pro Championships (Pro Slams)
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 1956 and 1959, the 1956 edition taking place
in Los Angeles and the 1957, 1958 and 1959 editions taking 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.
The Open Era began in 1968 when Grand Slam tournaments agreed to allow professional players
to compete with amateurs.[66]
Before 1968, only amateurs were allowed to compete in Grand
Slam tournaments and other events organized or sanctioned by the ILTF, including the Davis Cup.
The move is made because the English are tired of the hypocrisy in the
sport, the shamateurism that plagues high-class tennis. It is well
known that amateurs bargain for – and receive – exorbitant expenses
to compete at many tournaments.
"We must take action on our own
account to make the game honest", said Derek Penmam of the British
Open Era
The French Championships at Roland Garros was the first Grand Slam tournament to become "open" to professionals

association. "For too long now we have been governed by a set of
amateur rules that are quite unenforceable."[66]
During the first years of the Open Era, power struggles between the ILTF and the commercial
promoters led to boycotts of Grand Slam events. The first Open Era event was the 1968 British
Hard Court Championships held in April at The West Hants Club in Bournemouth, England,[67]
while
the first open Grand Slam tournament was the 1968 French Open in May.[68]
Both tournaments
were won by Ken Rosewall.
The Open Era allowed all tennis players the opportunity to make a
living by playing tennis.[69]
National Tennis League (NTL) and World Championship Tennis (WCT)
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.
Grand Prix circuit
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.[70]

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.
Tour rivalries and the creation of the Association of Tennis Professionals
(ATP)
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.[71]
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.[72]
Integration
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).[73]
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 America, 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.[74] About the same time, the
ruling body's name changed from the United States Lawn Tennis Association to the United
States Tennis Association.[75]
ATP Tour
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), and commencing in
1996, as International Series Gold, while the remaining (approximately 60) became known as the
International Series. Winning a Super Nine tournament was worth roughly half the points (370) of
winning a Grand Slam tournament (750), while International Series Gold tournament was 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
International Series Gold were renamed to simply the Championship Series (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.
Women's professional tennis began in 1926, when world number one female player Suzanne
Lenglen accepted $50,000 for a series of matches against three-time U.S. Champion Mary K.
Browne. The series ended in 1927, and the women did not compete as professionals again until
1941 when Alice Marble headlined a tour against Mary Hardwick. World War II hindered most
professional competitions and many players were involved with entertaining the troops.
In 1947, women professionals were again in action with a short-lived series of exhibition matches
between Pauline Betz and Sarah Palfrey Cooke, both U.S. National Champions. In 1950 and 1951,
Bobby Riggs signed Betz and Gussie Moran to play a pro tour with Jack Kramer and Pancho
Segura, wherein Betz dominated Moran. Althea Gibson turned professional in 1958 and joined with
Karol Fageros ("the Golden Goddess") as the opening act for the Harlem Globetrotters for one
season.
Women's professional tennis

There was virtually no further women's professional tennis until 1967, when promoter George
McCall signed Billie Jean King, Ann Jones, Françoise Dürr, and Rosie Casals to join his tour of eight
men for two years.[76]
The professional women then played as independents as the Open Era
began.
In 1970, promoter for the Pacific Southwest Championships in Los Angeles Jack Kramer offered
the women only $7,500 in prize money versus the men's total of $50,000. When Kramer refused
to match the men's prize money, King and Casals urged the other women to boycott.
Gladys Heldman, American publisher of World Tennis magazine, responded with a separate
women's tour under the sponsorship of Virginia Slims cigarettes. In 1971 and 1972, the WT
Women's Pro Tour offered nearly 10 times the prize money of other pro women's tennis events.
The USLTA initially would not sanction the tour; however, the two groups determined to give
Virginia Slims the individual events, and the USLTA the tour, thus resolving the conflict. In 1973,
the U.S. Open made history by offering equal prize money to men and women. Billie Jean King, the
most visible advocate for the women's cause, earned over $100,000 in 1971 and 1972.[77]
In the famous Battle of the Sexes exhibition match against the vocally sexist Bobby Riggs in
September 1973, King brought even more media attention to tennis, and to women professionals
in all walks of life by beating Riggs.
The Women's Tennis Association, formed in 1973, is the principal organizing body of women's
professional tennis, organizing the worldwide, professional WTA Tour. From 1984–98, the finals
matches of the championship event were best-of-five, uniquely among women's tournaments. In
1999, the finals reverted to best-of-three. The WTA Tour Championships are generally
considered to be the women's fifth most prestigious event (after the four Grand Slam
tournaments.) Sponsors have included Virginia Slims (1971–78), Avon (1979–82), Virginia Slims
again (1983–94), J.P. Morgan Chase (1996–2000), Sanex (2001) Home Depot (2002), and Sony
Ericsson (2006).
In 1954, James Van Alen founded the International Tennis Hall of Fame, a non-profit museum in
Newport, Rhode Island.[78]
The building contains a large collection of memorabilia as well as
honoring prominent players and others. Each year, a grass-court tournament takes place on its
grounds, as well as an induction ceremony honoring new members.
International Tennis Hall of Fame

Doping in tennis
Match fixing in tennis
Tennis technology
Tennis at the Summer Olympics
a. The first known instance of the word tennis in the English language dates to 1396 when a William
Terrey had to appear before the burghmote of Canterbury for allowing people to play le Closhe and le
Tenesse on his ground.[12]
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See also
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e.com/tennisfame.aspx?pgID=866) on May 18, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-29.

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