Origin and early years
There has been much dispute over the invention of modern tennis, but the officially recognized centennial of🏧 the game in 1973 commemorated its introduction by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield in 1873.
He published the first book of rules🏧 that year and took out a patent on his game in 1874, although historians have concluded that similar games were🏧 played earlier and that the first tennis club was established by the Englishman Harry Gem and several associates in Leamington🏧 in 1872.
Wingfield's court was of the hourglass shape and may have developed from badminton.
The hourglass shape, stipulated by Wingfield in🏧 his booklet "Sphairistiké, or Lawn Tennis," may have been adopted for patent reasons since it distinguished the court from ordinary🏧 rectangular courts.
At the time, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was the governing body of real tennis, whose rules it had🏧 recently revised.After J.M.
Heathcote, a distinguished real tennis player, developed a better tennis ball of rubber covered with white flannel, the🏧 MCC in 1875 established a new, standardized set of rules for tennis.
Meanwhile, the game had spread to the United States🏧 in the 1870s.
Mary Outerbridge of New York has been credited with bringing a set of rackets and balls to her🏧 brother, a director of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club.
But research has shown that William Appleton of Nahant, Massachusetts,🏧 may have owned the first lawn tennis set and that his friends James Dwight and Fred R.
Sears popularized the game.
An🏧 important milestone in the history of tennis was the decision of the All England Croquet Club to set aside one🏧 of its lawns at Wimbledon for tennis, which soon proved so popular that the club changed its name to the🏧 All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club.
In 1877 the club decided to hold a tennis championship, and a championship subcommittee🏧 of three was appointed.
It decided on a rectangular court 78 feet (23.
8 metres) long by 27 feet (8.2 metres) wide.
They🏧 adapted the real tennis method of scoring-15, 30, 40, game-and allowed the server one fault (i.e.
, two chances to deliver🏧 a proper service on each point).
These major decisions remain part of the modern rules.
Twenty-two entries were received, and the first🏧 winner of the Wimbledon Championships was Spencer Gore.
In 1878 the Scottish Championships were held, followed in 1879 by the Irish🏧 Championships.
There were several alterations in some of the other rules (e.g.
, governing the height of the net) until 1880, when🏧 the All England Club and the MCC published revised rules that approximate very closely those still in use.
The All England🏧 Club was the dominant authority then, the British Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) not being formed until 1888.
In 1880 the first🏧 U.S.
championship was held at the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club.
The victor was an Englishman, O.E.Woodhouse.
The popularity of the game🏧 in the United States and frequent doubts about the rules led to the foundation in 1881 of the U.S.
National Lawn🏧 Tennis Association, later renamed the U.S.
Lawn Tennis Association and, in 1975, the U.S.
Tennis Association (USTA).
Under its auspices, the first official🏧 U.S.
national championship, played under English rules, was held in 1881 at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island.
The winner, Richard Sears,🏧 was U.S.
champion for seven consecutive years.
Tennis had taken firm root in Australia by 1880, and the first Australian Championships were🏧 played in 1905.
The first national championships in New Zealand were held in 1886.
In 1904 the Lawn Tennis Association of Australasia🏧 (later of Australia) was founded.
The first French Championships were held at the Stade Français in 1891, but it was an🏧 interclub tournament that did not become truly international until 1925; the French Federation of Lawn Tennis was established in 1920.
Other🏧 national championships were inaugurated in Canada (1890), South Africa (1891), Spain (1910), Denmark (1921), Egypt (1925), Italy (1930), and Sweden🏧 (1936).
In 1884 a women's championship was introduced at Wimbledon, and women's national championships were held in the United States starting🏧 in 1887.
