The very first recorded mention of tennis was in the fourteenth Cycle of plays known as ‘The Second Shepherds? Play’ from the Wakefield Yorkshire writer known simply as The Wakefield Master. In scene VIII Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur?s round table plays tennis with a band of giants.
However, this would have been the medieval form of tennis known as real tennis which had evolved more than three centuries from an earlier ball game played in France around the 12th century.
This involved hitting the ball with the naked hand or later a glove and is thought to have begun with monks playing the game in monastery cloisters, judging by the construction and appearance of some of the early courts.
The game quickly proved to be a hit among European royals and in England was taken up by Henry V in the early fifteenth century. A hundred years later Henry VIII made the biggest effect as a young monarch, playing the game with enthusiasm at Hampton Court on a court he built in 1530.
The game flourished among the 17th century upper class in France, Spain, Italy, and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but suffered under English Puritanism. By the time of Napoleon, the royal families of Europe were under threat and real tennis was mostly abandoned.
In England, during the 18th century and early 19th century, as real tennis became less popular, three other racquet sports emerged: racquets, squash racquets, and lawn tennis (the modern game).
The contemporary 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, united elements of the game of rackets and the Spanish ball game pelota and played it on a croquet green in Edgbaston.
In 1872, both men moved to Leamington Spa and in 1874, in the company of two doctors from the Warneford Hospital, established the world’s first tennis club. In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield made up a similar game for the enjoyment of his guests at a garden party on his manor of Nantclwyd in Llanelidan, Wales.
He founded the game on the older real tennis. At the suggestion of Arthur Balfour, Wingfield named it “lawn tennis, and patented the game in 1874 with an eight-page rule book titled “Sphairistike or Lawn Tennis”, but he failed to be successful in enforcing his patent.
Tennis was first played in the U.S. at the residence of Mary Ewing Outerbridge on Staten Island, New York in 1874. In 1881, the desire to play tennis in competition led to the establishment of tennis clubs, which led to the four Grand Slams, which are regarded as the most important activities on the tennis circuit.
They are: Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open and they evolved into and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis. Both the name and much of the French vocabulary of tennis are borrowed from real tennis:
Tennis comes from the French tenez, the command form of the verb tenir, to hold: 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). ? Racquet comes from raquette, which comes from the Arabic rakhat, denoting the palm of the hand. ? Deuce comes from ‘? deux le jeu’, meaning “to both is the game” (that is, the two players have equal scores). ? Love is widely believed to come from “l’oeuf”, the French word for “egg”, representing the shape of a zero. ? The convention of numbering scores “15″, “30″ and “40″ comes from quinze, trente and quarante, which to French ears makes a pleasant sound, or from the quarters of a clock (15, 30, 45) with 45 simplified to 40.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several topics, but is at present involved with tickets for London Olympics. Click a link if you are interested in 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.
Events From January Ten Years Ago
Thursday, December 1st, 2011I was searching through a history book and it was talking about memorable events of ten years ago, but I had forgotten most of them. I have picked out some of the events of exactly ten years ago this month – January, in a word. So here are a few things that you may or probably will not remember from January 2000.
1 – on his first day as interim president, Vladimir Putin departed to visit Russian troops in Chechnya.
4 – President Clinton nominates Alan Greenspan to a fourth four year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
5 – President Clinton decides that Elian Gonzalez, a six year old Cuban boy who survived the capsizing of a refugee boat, should be returned to his father in Cuba.
6 – much of Miami is shut down by hundreds of Cuban-Americans protesting the Gonzalez decision. – the S.E.C reports that most partners of Price, Waterhouse, Coopers, the world’s largest accounting firm, contravened regulations requiring that they may not hold shares in firms that they audit. Five partners were fired.
7 – Vice Pres. Al Gore back-tracks on his assurance to ensure that all new appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff were sympathetic to permitting gays to serve openly in the military.
8 – AOL announces a merger with Time Warner for $165 billion: the world’s biggest ever.
11 – the British government rules that General Pinochet is medically unfit to stand trial for suspected crimes against humanity in Chile during his presidency.
13 – executives at the nation’s leading drugs companies say they want to cooperate with Clinton to institute Medicare coverage for prescription drugs this year.
15 – Arkan, the infamous Serbian paramilitary leader was shot dead in a hotel lobby in Belgrade.
18 – Helmut Kohl resigns as honorary Christian Democratic Party chairman over allegations of corruption from within the party.
24 – the Supreme Court rules that laws limiting political contributions to $1,000 in Missouri are constitutional.
25 – the Congressional Budget Office reports that the flood of tax revenues resulting from the exceptionally strong economy will last for ten years.
26 – ‘The New York Times’ informs that U.S investigators have unveiled links between a group of Algerians charged with plotting a terrorist strike in the U.S. and Osama Bin Laden, the exiled Saudi accused of bombing two American embassies.
31 – Republican Gov. George Ryan of Illinois halts all executions in the state citing a disgraceful record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row. – top officials n the C.I.A. are accused of blocking an internal investigation into indications that the agency’s past director, John M. Deutsch, mishandled secret information.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with custom wall calendars If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please visit our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars
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