Est. Medieval real tennis — lawn tennis 1873 · England and Wales
From royal courts to Centre Court — six centuries of rallies
Where it began
Tennis descends from jeu de paume, the medieval French handball game that became 'real tennis' in royal courts. Modern lawn tennis arrived in 1873–74 when Major Walter Clopton Wingfield patented an outdoor version he called Sphairistikè, sold as a boxed set for Victorian lawns. The All England Club staged the first Wimbledon Championships in 1877, standardizing the rectangular court and scoring that survive today.
From the margins
The scoring term 'love' for zero is often traced to the French 'l'oeuf' — the egg, shaped like a zero.
The rules, rewritten
1877
Wimbledon sets the template
For the first Championships, the All England Club fixed the rectangular court, net height, and the game-set-match scoring structure that replaced Wingfield's hourglass court.
1913
An international federation
The International Lawn Tennis Federation (now the ITF) was founded to harmonize the rules across nations and sanction international competition.
1968
The Open Era
The Grand Slams opened to professionals, ending the amateur-only rule that had forced the world's best players to abandon the major tournaments.
1970
The tiebreak
Jimmy Van Alen's tiebreaker was introduced at the US Open to end marathon sets, replacing endless win-by-two-games deuces at 6–6.
2006
Hawk-Eye challenges
Electronic line-calling review debuted on tour, giving players a limited number of challenges and beginning the march toward fully automated line calls.
2022
Final-set tiebreaks unified
All four Grand Slams adopted a 10-point tiebreak at 6–6 in the final set, ending decades of divergent deciding-set rules (and matches like Isner–Mahut's 70–68).
Current edition
Tennis is played in nearly every country, with the four Grand Slams among the most-watched annual sporting events on earth. It returned to the Olympics in 1988 after a 64-year absence, and the professional ATP and WTA tours run almost year-round across every continent.
The objective
Win a match by winning more sets, each set won by winning at least 6 games with a 2-game lead.
Rules as played today
One game, many houses
The four-player game with its own tactics of net play, formations, and communication.
A Paralympic sport since 1992, founded by Brad Parks in the 1970s, played on standard courts.
An ITF-sanctioned sand hybrid of tennis and beach volleyball popular in Italy and Brazil.
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