history of tennis essay pdf

Tennis History: Timeline & How it started

March 18, 2024

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Tennis history, a captivating tale of athleticism and evolution, serves as the foundation of this beloved global sport.

In this comprehensive overview of tennis history.

Discover the origins, key figures, and transformative moments that shape the game we enjoy today!

Ready? Let’s serve it up!

Table of Contents

Tennis History Summary

12th century, 1990s-2000s, 2010-present, who invented tennis, how did tennis become so popular, where did tennis originate.

• ⏳ Origins and Evolution: Tennis emerged in 12th century France as “jeu de paume,” a handball game. The sport evolved with the introduction of rackets in the 16th century, and modern tennis was established in 1874 by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield.
• 🚀 Rise to Prominence: The first Wimbledon Championship in 1877 marked the beginning of tennis as a professional sport. The growth of tennis was further fueled by the establishment of major tournaments, the International Lawn Tennis Federation, and iconic rivalries among legendary players.
• 🥇 Noteworthy Growth and Adaptation: Over the years, tennis has experienced widespread popularity, marked advancements in technology and equipment, and evolving rules for player well-being. Tennis’ enduring appeal can be attributed to its global reach, gripping rivalries, and iconic moments that capture the imagination of fans worldwide.

Tennis History Timeline

Tennis originated in 12th century France as “jeu de paume,” where players used their hands to hit a ball over a net. The game rapidly gained popularity among the French nobility, including King Louis X, who was an avid player. The name “tennis” is believed to have derived from the French word “tenez,” meaning “take” or “receive,” which players would shout before serving the ball.

As the game evolved, players started using gloves and then simple wooden rackets in the 15th century. By the 16th century, indoor courts featuring complex scoring systems had sprung up across Europe, including one commissioned by King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace.

Modern tennis was established by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, a British army officer, who created and patented a new game called “Sphairistiké” or “lawn tennis” in 1874. The game featured a rectangular court, a net, and simplified scoring rules. Wingfield’s tennis sets, which included rackets, balls, and a net, were sold commercially and gained popularity rapidly in Europe and the United States.

The first tennis clubs were soon founded, with the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon setting aside a lawn for tennis in 1875. Lawn tennis was added to the club’s name in 1877, and it was the beginning of the sport’s rapid professional development.

The inaugural Wimbledon Championships took place in 1877, marking the first official tennis tournament and the beginning of tennis as a professional sport. Held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, the championship featured only a men’s singles event, with Spencer Gore becoming the first Wimbledon champion.

In 1884, Wimbledon expanded its competition to include women’s singles and men’s doubles, paving the way for more iconic tennis moments and legendary players, such as five-time women’s singles champion Lottie Dod and the “Doherty Brothers,” who dominated men’s doubles in the early 1900s.

The International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) was founded in 1913, with the purpose of organizing and regulating international tennis competitions. Initially established by twelve national associations, the ILTF introduced standardized rules for the sport and contributed to the global growth of tennis. The organization would later become the International Tennis Federation (ITF), under whose governance the sport has flourished.

It was during this time that tennis was also included in the Olympics, making its debut in the 1896 and 1900 Summer Games. The sport would experience intermittent Olympic presence until becoming a permanent fixture in the 1988 Seoul Games.

The Open Era of tennis began in 1968, with the first open tennis tournament: the British Hard Court Championships. This period allowed both professional and amateur players to compete in the same tournaments, including the major Grand Slam events. The Open Era brought forth tennis greats like Rod Laver, Billie Jean King, Bjorn Borg, Martina Navratilova, and John McEnroe, who contributed to the sport’s rising popularity.

Meanwhile, technological advancements in racket materials, like the introduction of metal and composite rackets, enabled players to develop more powerful and diverse techniques. Alongside this, innovations in court surfaces, such as the creation of clay, grass, and hard courts, influenced playing styles and diversified professional tennis.

The 1990s and 2000s saw the emergence of a new generation of iconic players, including Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Serena and Venus Williams, and Roger Federer . Their thrilling on-court performances, combined with off-court charisma, captivated fans and solidified tennis as a highly popular global sport.

Moreover, advancements in television broadcasting and digital media expanded tennis’s reach and enabled fans worldwide to experience the excitement of Grand Slam tournaments, such as Wimbledon , the US Open , the Australian Open , and the French Open . Furthermore, the introduction of Hawk-Eye technology increased the accuracy of line-calling and officiating decisions, enhancing the fairness and quality of the sport.

In recent years, tennis has maintained its global appeal, with legends like Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Serena Williams dominating the sport and fostering avid fandoms. Simultaneously, promising young players like Naomi Osaka and Stefanos Tsitsipas have emerged, guaranteeing an exciting future for tennis.

Tennis has also adapted to player needs and societal expectations, with the implementation of advancements in sport science, injury prevention and rehabilitation, and efforts promoting gender equity, ensuring that tennis continues to thrive as a sport that captivates both players and fans around the world.

Major Walter Clopton Wingfield invented Tennis in 1873. The British officer developed a variation of the game called lawn tennis, which grew into modern tennis.

Tennis gained popularity due to its wide accessibility, pro-tours, and famous players like Billie Jean King and Roger Federer. It was also promoted globally through the Olympics and internationally recognized tournaments.

Tennis originated in France in the 12th Century. Initially, the ball was hit by hand, rackets were introduced in the 16th century.

Max is a sports enthusiast who loves all kinds of ball and water sports. He founded & runs stand-up-paddling.org (#1 German Paddleboarding Blog), played competitive Badminton and Mini Golf (competed on national level in Germany), started learning ‘real’ Golf and dabbled in dozens of other sports & activities.

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Tennis: Its History, Rules and Benefits Essay

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Introduction

History of tennis, rules and benefits.

There are a lot of disputes concerning the origin of tennis. It is believed that Egyptians, Greek, and Romans are the inventors of this fascinating game. Although there are not any descriptions of this game, drawings, and other artifacts testifying to the fact that this game was invented by Egyptians, Greek and Romans, there are some Arabic words that serve as evidence of this fact (Cooper, n.d.). The name of the game refers to the Egyptian town Tinnis that is near the river Nile and the word racquet comes from the Arabic word rahat denoting the palm of a human hand. Despite these words, there is no other evidence of the introduction of this game among Egyptians, Greek, and Romans.

Most historians consider French monks to be the first who played this game nearly in the 10th or 11th centuries. It is believed that they played a crude handball against the wall or over the rope strung across the yard. The name of the game comes from the word jeu de paume that means ‘game of the hand’ (Cooper, n.d.). Other historians believe that the name of the game takes roots from the French word tenez denoting something that can be taken from one player to another. When the game became more popular, it began to be played indoors using the same equipment including the ball, the wall, or the rope. Playing with a crude ball was inconvenient with bare hands, and players started to use gloves to protect their hands, and further on a racquet got in use. The ball used in the game was modified later too, and it was done with the help of a wad of hair, cork, or wool wrapped in cloth or leather.

This game was considered to be the privilege of high classes as far as the first ones who played this game were monks. Despite the prohibitions of the Pope and Louis lV, this game spread all over the world and English kings Henry Vll and Henry Vlll were the ardent players of this game. The racquet was changed by 1500, and it was made of a wooden frame strung with sheep gut (Cooper, n.d.). This new racquet as well as a cork-cored ball made the game easier and more interesting. The ball weighed three ounces was more convenient to play with it. The tennis courts used by royal families differed from modern ones. The first tennis court that resembled the modern one was constructed in 1625 and it was England’s Hampton Court that is still used in our times (Cooper, n.d.). It is a narrow indoor court so that the ball may be played against the wall.

The popularity of this game faded away in 1700, but 1850 was considered to be the year of the peak of its popularity. Charles Goodyear’s invention of a vulcanization process for rubber made considerable changes in tennis. The ball that was played with became much lighter and this game started to be played outdoors on the grass. Outdoor tennis changed from the indoor one considerably, so that there were no walls to play against them and rules were changed completely.

1874 is considered to be the year of the birth of modern tennis, the same as we play in our time. Major Walter C. Wingfield is the creator of tennis rules and equipment (Cooper, n.d.). The first courts appeared in America in the same year. Further on, tennis equipment began to be sold to Canada, India, China, and Russia. Croquet that was very popular at that time was supplanted with tennis, and smooth courts used in croquet were very convenient for playing tennis. The first tennis tournament was organized by the All England Club in 1877, and it was known as the first Wimbledon tournament. It was the first tournament with the rules that are used in modern tennis.

The rules of this play are quite simple. It is a play for two or four persons or singles and doubles. The players should stand on opposite sides from the net. That player who is the first to deliver the ball is known as the Server, and the other player is called the Receiver. The right to be the Server or the Receiver as well as the choice of sides is decided by toss. The winner chooses one of these privileges whether he decides to be the Server or the Receiver or chooses the side. The opponent has left the other privilege. If the winner chooses the side, the opponent decides who the Receiver and the Server are, and if the winner chooses to decide it himself, the opponent is left to choose the side.

The Server should stand behind the baseline within the boundaries for singles playing single and within the double baseline playing doubles. Ordinary points are played on the deuce court, while from the advantage court odd number points are played. The Server should not start till the Receiver is ready. Serves made from the deuce court should be played on the opponent’s service court, while serves from the advantage court should be made to the opponent’s advantage box. If the Server fails to hit the target twice, the point is lost (Tennis Rules Simplified, 2001). If the ball touches the net but hits the correct box, another service should be done. If the Server goes over the boundaries when he serves, he has deemed a fault. The Receiver may stand where he wants, but he is obliged to let the ball bounce in the service box. If the ball is failed to bounce in the service box, another service should be done. If the receiver hits the ball before it touches the service box, he wins the point (Tennis Rules Simplified, 2001). If the ball touches the net or goes outside the boundaries, the player hitting the ball loses the points. A player may also lose his points if he touches the net, bounces the ball over the net, tries to distract his opponent deliberately, drops the racquet while hitting the ball, touches with the ball the surrounding parts such as trees, roofs, or other objects. Let is the notion used in the game when there is a distraction made by the opponent deliberately or a ball rolls on the court.

The Server is the first who starts the game. If he wins the first point, he has a score of 15. Scoring in tennis resembles the clock. Love denotes zero in this game. The second point is scored 30. The third point is 45 and the game is considered to be won when the score is love again. If there is a score of 40-40 that is known as the deuce, one side is given a possibility to win by two points. Advantage-In denotes the probable winner of the game if the next point is hit. Advantage-Out denotes an approaching win of the Receiver if he hits the next point (Tennis Rules Simplified, 2001).

Tennis has been known as the “sport for a lifetime” (Taori, 2009). This game may be played by people of any age. Tennis is not only a popular kind of sport; it is a popular kind of entertainment in our time. This game is very useful for health, strength, fitness, and agility. There are physical, mental, and emotional benefits of playing tennis. Tennis increases cardiovascular fitness, improves body strength, increases general body coordination, improves flexibility, and is an effective method of weight loss. Except for all these physical benefits, there are some mental ones. Tennis develops disciplines and plans strategies. More than that, playing tennis develops social skills, accommodates stress, and teaches sportsmanship (Taori, 2009).

Tennis has become one of the most popular games all over the world. Everyone may enjoy playing this game professionally or with friends in their free time. The rules of this game are not very complicated, and it does not need supernatural abilities to play tennis. This game is quite simple to be taught to play. There are not only benefits for your physical, mental, and emotional development, but this game makes fun, and it is the best way of spending free time with your friends. There is no wonder that tennis is enjoyed all over the world by people belonging to different cultures and different social classes. This game was the privilege of rich people in the past, and now it is available to everybody. Everyone should not neglect such a great opportunity to try to play tennis.

Cooper, Jeff. n.d. The Origins and Early History of Tennis . Web. 2012.

Taori, Ravish, 2009. Benefits of Tennis . Web. 2012.

Tennis Rules Simplified , 2001. Web. 2012.

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IvyPanda. (2022, February 1). Tennis: Its History, Rules and Benefits. https://ivypanda.com/essays/tennis-its-history-rules-and-benefits/

"Tennis: Its History, Rules and Benefits." IvyPanda , 1 Feb. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/tennis-its-history-rules-and-benefits/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Tennis: Its History, Rules and Benefits'. 1 February.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Tennis: Its History, Rules and Benefits." February 1, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/tennis-its-history-rules-and-benefits/.

1. IvyPanda . "Tennis: Its History, Rules and Benefits." February 1, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/tennis-its-history-rules-and-benefits/.

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IvyPanda . "Tennis: Its History, Rules and Benefits." February 1, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/tennis-its-history-rules-and-benefits/.

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The origin of tennis may be connected to the 12th century game called jeu de paume (“game of the palm”) that came from northern France (Gillmeister, Heiner). It was popularized by Louis X of France, and he was the first person to build indoor tennis courts (Newman, Paul B.). His design for indoor courts gradually spread across Europe. In the first historical record of tennis, in June of 1316, Louis was playing a tennis game and drank a large quantity of cooled wine and later died. Because of this dramatic occurrence, tennis was first recorded (Gillmeister, Heiner). Following the death of Louis X, King Charles V of France was a noted enthusiast of the game, setting up a court in his Louvre Palace (J. Perris).

It is difficult to imagine, but tennis was being played with the palm of the hand until the 16th century, when rackets were introduced. When the game integrated rackets into its rules, the game changed its name to tennis from the French word tenez. This word was employed as an interjection to bring attention to the opponent by the server (Etymonline.com). In the 16th century, tennis was popular in England and France, but there was a rule at the time that you could hit the ball off the wall. It is said that Henry VIII of England was a huge fan of this game. The rules of keeping score, duration of the game, and more were different than modern tennis (Crego, Robert).

However, in the 18th and the 19th centuries, this type of tennis declined, and many other racket sports emerged, taking more prominence. But, the modern game of tennis was slowly taking shape. In 1830, the first patented lawn mower was invented in Britain, and this happening made it much easier to construct lawn courts that would later be ideal for modern tennis. In turn, by 1872, the first tennis club was founded by Harry Gem and Augurio Perera in England (Tyzack, Anna) and in 1873, and a British officer, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, patented a new game called “sticky” (E. M. Halliday). Most historians agree that Wingfield was responsible for developing the modern game of tennis by making his own rules, providing box sets of tennis equipment people could purchase, and marketing the game all over the world ( CNN ).

By 1874, Wingfield had sent thousands of tennis box sets to customers, and from this burst in sales came the first tennis championship called the Wimbledon Championships in 1877. For the Championship, much debate happened about how to standardize the rules of the game ( CNN ). In fact, in each club, tennis was played slightly differently, with varying rules, ball size, and more. By the early 1900s, however, clubs and championships cropped up in France, the US, Australia, and of course in Britain. The major championships played today—Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open—have been developed based on the centers where tennis first took hold most prominently ( Tennis Server ). Finally, in 1924, the standardized rules of tennis emerged from the efforts of the International Lawn Tennis Federation (later known as the International Tennis Federation).

Though there are many other details I could add, I would not want to bore the reader. This is essentially the flow of the history of this royal game. Favored by kings in England and France, it is now a global phenomenon. Many factors have contributed to its success: the invention of machines to create proper lawns for the game, royal backing, and several key people wanting to develop standardized rules for the game and to market it as a sport for all. From its beginnings as a form of backyard amusement, it is currently the most respected racket game in the world.

Gillmeister, Heiner (1998). Tennis: A Cultural History. Washington Square , N.Y.: New York University Press. p. 117. ISBN 0-8147-3121-X.

Newman, Paul B. (2001). Daily Life in the Middle Ages . Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-7864-0897-9.

J. Perris. Grass tennis courts: how to construct and maintain them . p.8. STRI, 2000.

“Online Etymology Dictionary.” Etymonline.com . 10 June 1927.

Crego, Robert. Sports and Games of the 18th and 19th Centuries . Page 115 (2003).

Tyzack, Anna. The True Home of Tennis . Country Life, 22 June 2005.

E. M. Halliday. “Sphairistiké, Anyone?” American Heritage .

“125 years of Wimbledon: From birth of lawn tennis to modern marvels.” CNN .

Tennis Server – Between The Lines – Suzanne Lenglen and the First Pro Tour , www.tennisserver.com/lines/lines_99_10_31.html.

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Tennis : a cultural history / Heiner Gillmeister

Gillmeister, Heiner

Edited by Equinox - 2017

This is the second edition of the highly acclaimed and bestselling comprehensive history of tennis which was the first truly scholarly history of any individual sport. Supported by a startling wealth of linguistic and documentary research, Gillmeister charts the global evolution of tennis from its origins in 12th century France where it emerged as a more peaceful variety of ribald football played in monasteries. By the 16th century, it had become the favourite pastime of the European aristocracy and had, in the wake of the Spanish conquistadors, even reached the Americas. The prestige of the game also led to its popularity among Renaissance poets and playwrights. After a gradual decline in the 18th and 19th centuries the medieval game revived in the 1870s in the form of lawn tennis. The new game dispensed with the expensive walled courts, discarded the complicated rules of the old game and was played in a natural setting. From England with its famous Wimbledon tournament it spread to the European continent and to the United States where the Davis Cup was born. Gillmeister debunks several firmly established myths about the history of the game and rare colour photographs and medieval and renaissance drawings generously adorn the text. A delight for the sports fan and the scholar alike, "Tennis: a cultural history" is the authoritative text on the sport.

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Tennis: A History from American Amateurs to Global Professionals

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Sundiata Djata, Tennis: A History from American Amateurs to Global Professionals, Journal of American History , Volume 109, Issue 4, March 2023, Pages 940–941, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaad037

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Greg Ruth's volume adds to the historiography of tennis. He argues that his work “partners with” existing studies, while placing tennis events into a “historical context” to advance “a periodization of the sport” into the constitutive eras. Unlike some other books, Tennis limits itself to a thematic approach divided into three periods. Period one follows the inception of the sport to the domination of Suzanne Lenglen, the French champion, and the first international professional tour. The second period (1926–1968) follows the “intense competition and the commercialization” of tennis between the leaders of the organization who were attempting to keep the game exclusively amateur and the professional players and promoters who were seeking to earn a living through tennis. The final period sees more competition between amateur and professional players and the arrival of big money into the sport. During these periods, some of the elitism was chipped away from the sport. There was more money to be made, and the players began to get their share from marketing themselves and the sport.

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David Foster Wallace’s Perfect Game

“Tennis” is a wonderful word in the sense that it never really existed. That is, although the game is French to the core—not one but two of France’s early kings died at the tennis courts, and the Republic was born on one, with the Tennis Court Oath—the French never called it that, tennis. They called it  jeu de paume , the “game of the palm,” or “handball,” if we want to be less awkwardly literal about it. (Originally they had played it with the bare hand, then came gloves, then paddles, then rackets.) When the French would go to serve, they often said,  Tenez !, the French word for “take it,” meaning “coming at you, heads up.” We preserve this custom of warning the opponent in our less lyrical way by stating the score just before we toss up the ball. It was the Italians who, having overheard the French make these sounds, began calling the game “ten-ez” by association. A lovely detail in that it suggests a scene, a Florentine ear at the fence or the entryway, listening. They often built those early courts in the forest, in clearings. The call in the air. Easy to think of Benjy in “The Sound and the Fury,” hearing the golfers shout “Caddy!” and assuming they mean his sister, only here the word moves between languages, out of France via the transnational culture of the aristocratic court and into Italy. There it enters European literature around the thirteen-fifties, the time of Petrarch’s “Phisicke Against Fortune.” In considering the anxiety that consumes so much of human experience, he writes, “And what is the cause hereof, but only our own lightness & daintiness: for we seem to be good for nothing else, but to be tossed hither & thither like a Tennise bal, being creatures of very short life, of infinite carefulness, & yet ignorant unto what shore to sail with our ship.”

A metaphor for human existence, then, and for fate: “We are merely the stars’ tennis-balls,” in John Webster’s “Duchess of Malfi,” “struck and banded / Which way please them.” That is one tradition. In another, tennis becomes a symbol of frivolity, of a different kind of “lightness.” Grown men playing with balls. The history of the game’s being used that way is twined up with an anecdote from the reign of Henry V, the powerful young king who had once been Shakespeare’s reckless Prince Hal. According to one early chronicler, “The Dauphin, thinking King Henry to be given to such plays and light follies . . . sent to him a tun of tennis-balls.” King Henry’s imagined reply at the battle of Agincourt was rendered into verse, probably by the poet-monk John Lydgate, around 1536:

Some hard tennis balls I have hither brought Of marble and iron made full round. I swear, by Jesu that me dear bought, They shall beat the walls to the ground.

That story flowers into a couplet of Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” circa 1599. The package from the Dauphin arrives. Henry’s uncle, the Duke of Exeter, takes it. “What treasure, uncle?” the king asks. “Tennis-balls, my liege,” Exeter answers. “And we understand him well,” Henry says (a line meant to echo an earlier one, said under very different circumstances, Hal’s equally famous “I know you all and will awhile uphold”):

How he comes o’er us with our wilder days Not measuring what use we made of them.

A more eccentric instance of tennis-as-metaphor pops up in Shakespeare’s “Pericles,” where the tennis court is compared with the ocean. It occurs in the part of the play that scholars now believe was written by a tavern-keeper named George Wilkins. Pericles has just been tossed half dead onto the Greek shore and is discovered by three fishermen. He says,

A man whom both the waters and the wind, In that vast tennis-court, hath made the ball For them to play upon, entreats you pity him.

These lines may cause some modern readers to recall David Foster Wallace’s “Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley,” an essay about learning to play the game in the central Midwest, where extreme winds are an almost constant factor, but where Wallace succeeded, he tells us, in part because of a “weird robotic detachment” from the “unfairnesses of wind and weather.”

David Foster Wallace wrote about tennis because life gave it to him—he had played the game well at the junior level—and because he was a writer who in his own way made use of wilder days, turning relentlessly in his work to the stuff of his own experience. But the fact of the game in his biography came before any thought of its use as material. At least I assume that’s the case. It can be amazing how early in life some writers figure out what they are and start to see their lives as stories that can be controlled. It is perhaps not far-fetched to imagine Wallace’s noticing early on that tennis is a good sport for literary types and purposes. It draws the obsessive and brooding. It is perhaps the most isolating of games. Even boxers have a corner, but in professional tennis it is a rules violation for your coach to communicate with you beyond polite encouragement, and spectators are asked to keep silent while you play. Your opponent is far away, or, if near, is indifferently hostile. It may be as close as we come to physical chess, or a kind of chess in which the mind and body are at one in attacking essentially mathematical problems. So, a good game not just for writers but for philosophers, too. The perfect game for Wallace.

He wrote about it in fiction, essays, journalism, and reviews; it may be his most consistent theme at the surface level. Wallace himself drew attention, consciously or not, to both his love for the game and its relevance to how he saw the world. He knew something, too, about the contemporary literature of the sport. The close attention to both physics and physical detail that energizes the opening of his 1996  Esquire _  piece on a then-young Michael Joyce (a promising power baseliner who became a sought-after coach and helped Maria Sharapova win two of her Grand Slam titles) echoes clearly the first lines of John McPhee’s “Levels of the Game”  _(one of the few tennis books I can think of that give as much pleasure as the one you’re holding): “Arthur Ashe, his feet apart, his knees slightly bent, lifts a tennis ball into the air. The toss is high and forward. If the ball were allowed to drop, it would, in Ashe’s words, ‘make a parabola.’ ”

For me, the cumulative effect of Wallace’s tennis-themed nonfiction is a bit like being presented with a mirror, one of those segmented mirrors they build and position in space, only this one is pointed at a writer’s mind. The game he writes about is one that, like language, emphasizes the closed system, makes a fetish of it (“Out!”). He seems both to exult and to be trapped in its rules, its cruelties. He loves the game but yearns to transcend it. As always in Wallace’s writing, Wittgenstein is the philosopher who most haunts the approach, the Wittgenstein who told us that reality is inseparable from language (“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”), and that language is inseparable from game (both being at root “part of an activity, a form of life”).

From such a description a reader might conclude that the writer under discussion was dry and abstract, and in the end only using the sport, in a convenient, manipulative way, to say other things, which he deemed more significant—but that is not the writer you’ll meet in the following pages. This is instead one who can transpose on-court sensations into his prose. In those paragraphs that describe how growing up in a windy country shaped his game, briefly allowing him to excel over more talented opponents who tended to get frustrated in unpredictable conditions, he tells us that he was “able to use the currents kind of the way a pitcher uses spit. I could hit curves way out into cross-breezes that’d drop the ball just fair; I had a special wind-serve that had so much spin the ball turned oval in the air and curved left to right. . . .” In reviewing Tracy Austin’s autobiography, he finds a way, despite his disappointment with the book, to say something about athletic greatness and mediocrity, and what truly differentiates them, remembering how as a player he would often “get divided, paralyzed. As most ungreat athletes do. Freeze up, choke. Lose our focus. Become self-conscious. Cease to be wholly present in our wills and choices and movements.” Unlike the great, who become so in part because it would never occur to them not to be “totally present.” Their “blindness and dumbness,” in other words, are not “the price of the gift” but “its essence,” and are even the gift itself. The writer, existing only in reflection, is of all beings most excluded from the highest realms.

Possibly Wallace’s finest tennis piece, certainly his most famous, is “Federer Both Flesh and Not,” an essay first published in 2006 in the  Times ’ short-lived sports magazine  Play . The greatest tennis writer of his generation was writing about the greatest player of his generation. The sentence needs no qualifiers. Federer himself later remarked, in a question-and-answer forum, that he was astonished at what a “comprehensive” piece Wallace had produced, despite the fact that Federer had spent only “20 min with him in the ATP office.” But I doubt Wallace wanted more face time than that. He had come to Wimbledon in search of not the man Roger Federer but rather the being Federer seemed to become when he competed. What Wallace wanted to see occurred only as spectacle. In that respect and others, it is interesting to compare the Federer piece with the profile Wallace had written precisely a decade before, about Michael Joyce. I tend to prefer the earlier piece, for its thick description and subtleties, while recognizing the greatness of the later one. In the Joyce piece, Wallace had written about a nobody, a player no one had heard of and who was never going to make it on the tour. That was the subtext, and at times the text, of the essay: you could be  that _  good and still not be good enough. The essay was about agony. In Federer, though, he had a player who offered him a different subject: transcendence. What it actually looked like. An athlete who appeared “to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws.” One can see exactly what Wallace means in footage of the point he breaks down so beautifully—a “sixteen-stroke point” that reads as dramatically as a battle scene—which occurred in the second set of Federer’s 2006 Wimbledon final match against Rafael Nadal, a point that ends with a backhand one can replay infinite times and somehow come no closer to comprehending, struck from about an inch inside the baseline with some kind of demented spin that causes the ball to  slip  _over the net and vanish. Nadal never touches it. Wallace is able not only to give us the moment but to let us see the strategic and geometric intelligence that went into setting it up, the ability Federer had (has, as of this writing) to “hypnotize” opponents through shot selection.

The key sentences in the Federer essay, to my mind, occur in the paragraph that mentions “evolution.” In discussing the “power baseline” style that has defined the game in the modern era—two heavy hitters standing back and blasting wrist-fracturing ground strokes at each other—Wallace writes that “it is not, as pundits have publicly feared for years, the evolutionary endpoint of tennis. The player who’s shown this to be true is Roger Federer.” One imagines his writing this sentence with something almost like gratitude. It had taken genius to break through the brutal dictates of the power game and bring back an all-court style, to bring back art. And Federer, as Wallace emphasizes, did this from “within” the power game; he did it while handling shots that were moving at hurricane force. Inside the wind tunnel of modern tennis, he crafted a style that seemed made for a butterfly, yet was crushingly effective. What a marvelous subject, and figure, for a twenty-first-century novelist, a writer working in a form that is also (perpetually?) said to be at the end of its evolution, and an artist who similarly, when at his best, showed new ways forward.

This piece was drawn from the introduction to “String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis,” which is out May 10th from Library of America.

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Introduction

Tennis is a fast-paced sport for two or four players. It can be played either outdoors or indoors. Tennis players use a stringed racket to hit a ball over a net. They score points by hitting the ball out of the opponent’s reach.

Court and Equipment

The only equipment needed for tennis is a racket and a ball. A tennis racket has a frame with crossed strings attached to it. Most racket frames are made of a lightweight material such as graphite. Tennis balls are small, light, and bouncy. They are usually yellow or white.

Playing the Game

The serve is the most important stroke in tennis. The served ball must land in a boxed area on the opponent’s side of the court. If the ball misses that box, it is called a fault. The server then gets another chance to serve. If the server makes another fault, the opponent gets a point. On the other hand, the server earns a point by serving the ball so well that the opponent cannot hit it. This is called an ace.

A player needs four points to win a game. Points are counted in four stages: 15 for the first point, 30 for the second, 40 for the third, and game. A score of zero is called love. The server’s score is given first. For example, if the score is 30–love, the server has two points and the opponent none. If both players reach 40, the score is called deuce. The player who scores the first point after deuce must also get the next point to win the game. In other words, a player must win by two points.

A series of games makes up a set, and a series of sets makes up a match. The first player to win six games traditionally wins a set. But again, a player must win by two. This means that a player cannot win a set by a score of 6–5. The set continues until one player wins by two games—for example, 7–5 or 8–6. To win a match, a player usually has to win either two out of three or three out of five sets.

Major Walter Clopton Wingfield of Great Britain published the first book of tennis rules in 1873. The first tennis championship took place four years later. It was held in a part of London, England, called Wimbledon. Tennis reached the United States in the 1870s.

Great Britain, Australia, France, and the United States each hold a major international tennis tournament each year. Together the four tournaments are known as the Grand Slam. The Wimbledon tournament is the oldest Grand Slam event.

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• Tennis Essay for Students in English

What is an Essay?

We all know that a pen is always mightier than a sword but the pen is not always effective if the writer is not able to frame his thoughts in a broad aspect. Though we all feel that writing inspiring words that help us grow the mindset and knowledge about people's inspiration alone cannot be enough. We need to focus on the facts, grammar and a lot more things while writing and writing essays. And now we’ll be discussing such tips and tricks for writing an effective essay.

Steps for Writing an Inspiring Essay

Have a clear understanding of the topic: Read the topic and understand what is expected from you over those words. Know exactly what is expected from you over the title and then dissect the idea into parts to think of prompt ideas for writing.

Create a plan: Start brainstorming your ideas, organize your thoughts this will help you get a good overview of the topic and help you write an effective essay easily. A good idea is to make a hierarchical plan about the paragraphs you plan to write to support your ideas and give details about the same.

Research: Here comes the most enthralling part of writing an essay. You need to at least go through 8-7 well-cited resources to get a brief idea of how to write your content. Use more idioms. phrases and quotes to make your essay more informative and quality worthy. While doing this make sure you never use someone else’s ideas as it is in your essay. SAY NO TO PLAGIARISM.

Prepare a draft: Tadaaa! Now comes the part where we have to work our minds off and write down the brainstorming ideas into a well-formed informative essay. Usually, the first draft is considered as crap but if we work and organize our thoughts well using good informative words then our crappy ideas might turn out to be a gold gem.

Make a good thesis: Now comes the important part of writing our strong ideas into the essay.

Respond to the final prompts: The last moment kinks are always welcomed. If you’ve any last moment thoughts, add them up in the draft and get ready for the final round of writing your essay.

Proofreading: This is an essential part. You must always read your essay at least twice to check if the sentences are well-formed and there are no grammatical errors in them.

Essay on Tennis

Tennis is a widely popular outdoor game which is being played in all regions of the world. Tennis was first played in the mid 19 th century in Birmingham, England. Tennis has several variations in how it is played which include lawn tennis, table tennis, etc. Similar to cricket and soccer, tennis is a physically demanding sport. In this essay on tennis in English, how the sport influences one’s body and the effects it has on their body and mental health are discussed.

The Tennis Essay: All You Need to Know About the Sport 

Tennis is a kind of racket sport that is beneficial to one’s body in many regards. Although the majority of people concentrate on sports like cricket or football when they are young, oftentimes they cannot participate in those sports as they become older. However, tennis can be played and enjoyed by a wide group of people ranging from the very young to older people.

Here are Some of the Benefits of Playing Tennis

By playing tennis, one can acquire a better physique. Due to the several movements which are involved in the act of playing tennis, it is incredibly helpful in resulting in a better physique for one who plays tennis continually over a long period. 

Playing tennis results in a person having improved aerobic capacities as tennis is a physically demanding game that calls for an immense level of flexibility among its players.

Consistent practice of tennis helps in maintaining one’s blood pressure which further results in improved metabolism.

Tennis is a sport which can be played by people of different ages depending on their levels of stamina and the activeness of their bodies. Thus, tennis is a great physical activity for older people and it’s supremely enjoyable amongst people of all ages. 

One of the key advantages of a racket game like tennis is its list of required equipment which only includes a ball, a racket, and a net. Along with a ground to play in. Thus, it doesn’t require a ton of equipment or protective gear which makes tennis a readily playable sport. 

Tennis is an extremely helpful sport to reduce body weight, along with swimming. Because of the intense physical demand of this sport, tennis is considered one of the most effective sports for people with the desire of losing body weight.

Another advantage of playing tennis involves improving the reaction time of people. Because of the quick nature of the action, tennis helps increase the reaction time amongst its players.

Apart from these health benefits, tennis is also an effective way of reducing stress among people. According to various studies, playing tennis reduces stress and increases levels of happiness among people, especially older people. Studies prove that due to the physically demanding nature of tennis, it is helpful to people who experience stress. Tennis is also considered an extremely profitable career choice among people. 

Tennis players like Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic are among the highest-earning sports persons in the world. Thus, the career of playing tennis is a profitable one as it can potentially earn its players relatively large amounts of wealth to establish and support their lifestyles. Along with considerable money, tennis also opens up several doors of recognition for its players. Professional tennis players are recognized and adored worldwide by legions of people which include those who admire them and are influenced by them. 

Types of Tennis Courts

Clay courts: These types of courts slow down the ball resulting in the ball bouncing higher compared to grass or hard courts. They are made from stone and crushed shale.

Grass courts: Fastest type of courts that consist of grass grown on hard-packed soil. These are high maintenance courts and have to be watered often and take a long time to dry. It’s difficult to play on such courts during the rainy season.

Hard courts: Made from a rigid material and are covered by acrylic surface layer thus offering higher consistency for bouncing of the ball.

Carpet courts: Any removable court covering. Used in the indoor arenas.

Interesting Facts

Tennis originated from ‘ Jeu de Paume' which was played in France. Jeu de paume was a game played in the 12th century in France and was known as the game of palm. It is believed to be the forerunner of the sport.

Do you know? The oldest tennis stadium is located in London. The name of the stadium is Royal Tennis Court, which is a court palace in Hampton.

The scoring system is based on the clock face at one end of the court. The origins are 15,30 and 40 respectively. 

The US Open was won by Jimmy Connors on three different surfaces.

In a standard match, a tennis ball is usually played in the stadium for straight 20 minutes.

The Essay on Tennis: A Wrap-up

From the points that have been discussed and presented in this tennis essay, the benefits of the sport are clear. Tennis benefits a multitude of people in several different ways, ranging from health to social relations. Regular practice of the game helps to maintain and improve the physical fitness of an individual and helps reduce stress.

A Short Essay on Tennis

An essay on my favorite game tennis.

Tennis is an outdoor game that is popular worldwide and played all over the globe. Several health benefits result from playing tennis, along with mental and social benefits. In this short essay on tennis, those benefits are discussed.

The Key Points

Due to its physically demanding nature, tennis is considered beneficial to the improvement of bodily fitness among people. Due to its various movements, tennis is proven to be helpful to people with stress reduction. The following part of my favorite sport tennis essay states the health benefits of the outdoor game:

Playing tennis results in achieving a better physique due to its various bodily movements.

Tennis results in better maintenance of human metabolism and blood pressure levels.

Tennis is incredibly helpful in losing body weight in people due to its intense physical nature.

Playing tennis helps increase aerobic capacities.

Tennis helps in improving muscle tone, strength and flexibility.

Tennis helps us improve reaction time as it makes us quite active people.

The above points in the tennis essay in English summarize the benefits of tennis in improving people’s physical agility and mental health.  

Tennis is a highly profitable career choice as professional players like Serena Williams and Roger Federer are among the highest-earning sports persons in the world.

FAQs on Tennis Essay for Students in English

1. Who Invented Tennis?

Major Walter Wingfield invented the current version of tennis in 1873.

2. What are the four Grand Slams in Tennis?

The four Grand Slam tournaments in tennis are the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open.

3. Who are the Top Three Singles Tennis Players in the World?

The top three rankings in Singles tennis are-

Novak Djokovic

Rafael Nadal

Dominic Thiem 

4. What are the cons of playing tennis?

The cons of playing tennis are:

1. The cost of tennis equipment can be costly.

2. There are a short number of tennis courts.

3. It takes time to learn and motivation might become a problem.

4. It's not a team sport and hence pressure can be high on an individual.

5. You can learn basics on your own but for next-level training, you need to hire a coach which can be expensive.

6. Talent plays an important factor and you may hate being active for way too long.

5. What are different types of tennis matches?

The tennis matches are played in 2 formats. The first ones are standard matches played casually or during official tournaments. They are played either as singles(Played between two men and two women but when played between a man and women then considered as informal), doubles(two teams consisting of two team players) or mixed doubles(similar to doubles but has one woman and one man in each team). The next is other formal matches and these are played as Canadian doubles.

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table tennis

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• National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - The Physiological Demands of Table Tennis: A Review
• LiveAbout - A Brief History of Table Tennis (Ping-Pong)
• University of Wyoming - Intramural Sports - Table Tennis Rules
• Table Tennis - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
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table tennis , ball game similar in principle to lawn tennis and played on a flat table divided into two equal courts by a net fixed across its width at the middle. The object is to hit the ball so that it goes over the net and bounces on the opponent’s half of the table in such a way that the opponent cannot reach it or return it correctly. The lightweight hollow ball is propelled back and forth across the net by small rackets (bats, or paddles) held by the players. The game is popular all over the world. In most countries it is very highly organized as a competitive sport, especially in Europe and Asia, particularly in China and Japan .

The game was invented in England in the early days of the 20th century and was originally called Ping-Pong, a trade name. The name table tennis was adopted in 1921–22 when the old Ping-Pong Association formed in 1902 was revived. The original association had broken up about 1905, though apparently the game continued to be played in parts of England outside London and by the 1920s was being played in many countries. Led by representatives of Germany , Hungary, and England, the Fédération Internationale de Tennis de Table ( International Table Tennis Federation) was founded in 1926, the founding members being England, Sweden , Hungary, India, Denmark, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria , and Wales. By the mid-1990s more than 165 national associations were members.

The first world championships were held in London in 1926, and from then until 1939 the game was dominated by players from central Europe, the men’s team event being won nine times by Hungary and twice by Czechoslovakia. In the mid-1950s Asia emerged as a breeding ground of champions, and from that time the individual and team events (for both men and women) have been dominated by athletes from China. The popularity of the game in China was notable for giving rise to so-called “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” a period during the 1970s in which Cold War tensions between China and the United States were eased via a series of highly publicized table tennis matches between athletes from the two countries. The first such event—held in Beijing in 1971—is widely credited with paving the way for U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon ’s historic visit to China the following year. In 1980 the first World Cup was held, and Guo Yuehua of China won the $12,500 first prize. Table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988, with singles and doubles competition for men and women.

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Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence

Title: the ai scientist: towards fully automated open-ended scientific discovery.

Abstract: One of the grand challenges of artificial general intelligence is developing agents capable of conducting scientific research and discovering new knowledge. While frontier models have already been used as aides to human scientists, e.g. for brainstorming ideas, writing code, or prediction tasks, they still conduct only a small part of the scientific process. This paper presents the first comprehensive framework for fully automatic scientific discovery, enabling frontier large language models to perform research independently and communicate their findings. We introduce The AI Scientist, which generates novel research ideas, writes code, executes experiments, visualizes results, describes its findings by writing a full scientific paper, and then runs a simulated review process for evaluation. In principle, this process can be repeated to iteratively develop ideas in an open-ended fashion, acting like the human scientific community. We demonstrate its versatility by applying it to three distinct subfields of machine learning: diffusion modeling, transformer-based language modeling, and learning dynamics. Each idea is implemented and developed into a full paper at a cost of less than $15 per paper. To evaluate the generated papers, we design and validate an automated reviewer, which we show achieves near-human performance in evaluating paper scores. The AI Scientist can produce papers that exceed the acceptance threshold at a top machine learning conference as judged by our automated reviewer. This approach signifies the beginning of a new era in scientific discovery in machine learning: bringing the transformative benefits of AI agents to the entire research process of AI itself, and taking us closer to a world where endless affordable creativity and innovation can be unleashed on the world's most challenging problems. Our code is open-sourced at this https URL

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