tennis, game played indoors or outdoors by two players (singles) or four players (doubles) on a level court.

Rules and Equipment

Lawn tennis was originally played on grass courts, but most major events are now played on courts of hard, composite materials; exceptions include Wimbledon, played on grass, and the French Open, played on clay. In singles play the court measures 78 ft by 27 ft (23.8 m by 8.2 m). The court is divided in half by a net 3 ft (91 cm) high in the middle and 3.5 ft (1.1 m) high at the end posts. On either side of the net lie the forecourts, each of which contains two adjacent service courts measuring 21 ft by 13.5 ft (6.4 m by 4.1 m) each. A backcourt 18 ft (5.5 m) long adjoins each forecourt. A base line that runs parallel to the net terminates the playing court. In doubles play, 41/2-foot-wide (1.4-m) alleys flanking either side of the court perpendicular to the net are also in play.

Play is directed toward hitting the inflated rubber, felt-covered, unstitched ball (slightly smaller than a baseball) with a racket—oval headed, originally 27 in. (68.58 cm) long but now usually longer, the hitting surface strung with resilient fiber—into the opponent's court so that it may not be returned. One player serves an entire game and is given two service tries each time the ball is put in play. The ball is served diagonally from behind the base line so that it bounces beyond the net, in the opposite service court. A let ball (one that caroms off the top of the net into the proper service court) does not count as a fault (bad serve). Service alternates after points, between the right- and left-hand courts. After the first game and all odd-numbered games, the players change ends of the court.

Once the serve puts the ball in play, players may hit it into any part of the opponent's court until a point is scored. Rallies won by either player score points. Scoring progresses from love (zero) to 15 (first point), to 30, then 40. The point scored after 40 wins the game, but when the game goes to deuce (tied at 40-40) a player must go two points ahead to win it. The first player to win six games takes the set, provided the opposing player has won no more than four games. Traditionally, after the players were tied at five games all, the first to go two games ahead won the set. In 1970, however, the United States Lawn Tennis Association (founded 1881 and now simply the United States Tennis Association), the sport's national governing body, initiated an abbreviated method, called the tie-breaker, for deciding deadlocked sets. In a tie-breaker, the first player to win seven points wins the set, provided the opponent trails by at least two points. Only in the deciding set of major championship matches outside the United States is the original two-game margin of victory retained. The best two out of three sets wins most professional matches; the best three out of five sets wins a late-round match in men's play in major championships. An umpire calls play, and in important matches a net judge, foot-fault judges, and linesmen often assist.

History

Origins

Unlike most other sports, lawn tennis has precise origins. An Englishman, Major Walter C. Wingfield, invented lawn tennis (1873) and first played it at a garden party in Wales. Called "Sphairistiké" [Gr.,=ball playing] by its inventor, the early game was played on an hourglass-shaped court, widest at the baselines and narrowest at the net. In creating the new sport, Wingfield borrowed heavily from the older games of court tennis and squash racquets and probably even from the Indian game of badminton.

Court tennis is also known as royal tennis. It originated in France during the Middle Ages and became a favorite of British royalty, including Henry VIII. The progression from court tennis, which used an unresilient sheepskin ball filled with sawdust, sand, or wool, to lawn tennis depended upon invention of a ball that would bounce.

Lawn tennis caught on quickly in Great Britain, and soon the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon held the first world tennis championship (1877). Restricted to male players, that event became the famous Wimbledon Tournament for the British National Championship, still the most prestigious event in tennis. In 1884 Wimbledon inaugurated a women's championship. Soon the game became popular in many parts of the British Empire, especially in Australia.

Tennis spread to the United States by way of Bermuda. While vacationing there, Mary Ewing Outerbridge of New York was introduced (1874) to the game by a friend of Wingfield. She returned to the United States with a net, balls, and rackets, and with the help of her brother, set up a tennis court in Staten Island, N.Y. The first National Championship, for men only, was held (1881) at Newport, R.I. A women's championship was begun six years later, and in 1915 the National Championship moved to Forest Hills, N.Y. Since 1978 what is now the United States Tennis Association Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y., has hosted the event (known as the U.S. Open). The Tennis Hall of Fame is in Newport, R.I.

The Professionalization of Tournament Tennis

In 1900 the international team competition known as the Davis Cup tournament began. Along with the Wightman Cup (begun 1923), an annual tournament between British and American women's teams, the Davis Cup helped to focus international attention on tennis. In 1963, a women's Davis Cup equivalent, the Federation Cup, usurped the prestige of the Wightman Cup. In the first decades of the 1900s tennis was primarily a sport of the country club set. The widespread construction of courts on school and community playgrounds in the 1930s (many built by the federal government's New Deal agencies) helped to make tennis more accessible to the public.

When the professional game showed itself to be profitable in the late 1920s, a number of amateur players joined the tour. One of the first to do so was William Tilden, perhaps the greatest player in the history of tennis. Before Tilden turned pro (1931), he won a total of seven United States singles championships and three Wimbledon championships.

The continued defection of amateur players into the professional ranks was one of the factors that led amateur tennis's world governing body, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF, founded 1913), to open its tournaments to both professionals and amateurs in 1968. For many years the major ILTF-sponsored tournaments, including Wimbledon and the U.S. National Championship, had been restricted to amateurs. With the advent of open tennis, however, the great professionals were allowed to compete for the major titles. Eventually, the Davis Cup also allowed professionals.

The four major annual tournaments in international tennis are Wimbledon, the Australian Open, the French Open, and the U.S. Open. Winning all four in the same year is called a grand slam. Only Don Budge (1938), Rod Laver (1962, 1969), Maureen Connolly (1953), Margaret Court (1970), and Steffi Graf (1988) have won grand slams. In 1971, the establishment of a women-only professional tour gave female pros financial parity with their male counterparts. In the same year Billie Jean King became the first woman athlete in any sport to earn more than $100,000 in one year. In the 1970s a team league, World Team Tennis, operated for several years, but was unsuccessful. The professional tour remains the most visible focus for the sport, its major tournaments surpassing in prestige even competition in the Olympics, which added tennis in 1988.

table tennis, game played, usually indoors, by two or four players; it is more or less a miniature form of lawn tennis. It is also called Ping-Pong, after the trade name that a manufacturer adopted (c.1900) for the equipment.

The regulation game is played on a table that measures 9 ft by 5 ft (2.74 m by 1.52 m) and stands 2.5 ft (76 cm) from the floor. A transverse net 6 in. (15.25 cm) high divides the surface, which is generally dark in color, edged with white stripes, and halved longitudinally (for doubles play) by another white stripe. The celluloid ball is hollow, seamless, and about 1.5 in. (3.81 cm) in diameter, with a weight of .1 oz (2.8 grams); the racket, or bat, is a wooden paddle with a handle 3 in. (7.62 cm) long and a round blade about 6.5 in. (16.5 cm) long, covered with rubber.

In the service (unlike tennis) the ball must bounce once before clearing the net and again bounce before being struck by the receiver. After the service (only one is allowed, not two as in tennis), the returns should go over the net without bouncing on the near surface. A point is scored when a service does not land properly in play or when a player fails to return the ball properly. Each player in turn serves consecutively five times until the winning score of 21 is reached. (If the score is tied at 20-all, play must continue until a 2-point margin is won.) In doubles matches partners rotate in units of five consecutive services, and the server must deliver the ball into the diagonally opposite box.

Table tennis originated in the late 19th cent. with cork or rubber balls. First popular in England, it spread to several European countries and to the United States in the early 20th cent. The International Table Tennis Federation was founded (1926) to standardize the rules and equipment. The U.S. Table Tennis Association was founded in 1933.

Primarily a recreational sport in the United States, table tennis is a major competitive sport in Asia and parts of Europe. In 1971 the sport achieved a great measure of publicity when, while touring Japan, a U.S. table tennis team was invited to play in China, thereby initiating the first officially sanctioned Sino-American cultural exchange in almost twenty years. Table tennis took its place on the Olympic program in 1988.

squash tennis, game played on a four-walled court, similar in dimensions to the court on which squash racquets is played. The two games, however, differ in equipment, rules, and play. The squash tennis ball, the size of a lawn tennis ball, is larger and livelier than the squash racquets ball, and the squash tennis racket is the shape of a tennis racket but is smaller. The rules differ especially concerning the service; e.g., in squash tennis a ball may not carom off the side walls before hitting the front wall on the service, the service must bounce in front of the floor service line, volleying (i.e., returning the ball before it hits the floor) is forbidden in returning the service, and only the server may score a point. Squash tennis developed during the 1880s when some Americans began to play squash racquets with a modified tennis ball in order to speed up play.

platform tennis, version of lawn tennis played on an elevated wooden or aluminum court that is one fourth the size of a standard court, usually by doubles teams. Unlike lawn tennis, platform tennis allows only one serve, and balls may be played off the 12-ft-high (3.7-m) wire-mesh screen that completely enclose the court. A perforated wooden paddle is used instead of a racquet, and the ball is smaller, solid, and made of sponge rubber. The game was devised in 1928 to provide for winter tennis, the platform being more easily cleared of snow than a regular court.

lawn tennis: see tennis.

court tennis, indoor racket and net game of ancient origin. It is believed to have originated (about the 14th cent.) in medieval France and is the forerunner of most modern racket games. In its early days the sport was known as royal tennis because of the interest it held for French and English royalty. Enjoying varying degrees of popularity over the years, the sport was first played in the United States in 1876. Court tennis is played on an indoor, concrete court 110 ft by 38 ft (33.53 m by 11.58 m), which is surrounded by four walls 30 ft (9.14 m) high. A player hits the ball—made of tightly wound cloth—with a 16-oz (.45-kg), 27-in. (68.5-cm) racket over the center net and plays the surface of the floor, the walls, and the ceiling to put the ball out of reach of the opponent. The scoring is intricate, and hitting the ball into wall openings also wins points.

Tennis or Tinnis, medieval city of Egypt, on an island in Lake Manzala, southwest of modern Port Said. Tennis, founded when Tanis was abandoned, was a port and center of commerce of some importance. It was particularly notable for its fine textiles (much prized throughout the Muslim world).

Game played with rackets and a light, elastic ball by two players or pairs of players on a rectangular court divided by a low net. Tennis is played indoors and outdoors, on hard-surface, clay, and grass courts. The object is to hit the ball over the net and into the opponent's half of the court in such a way as to defeat the opponent's attempt to reach and return it. Each player serves for an entire game. Points are scored as 15, 30, 40, and game (the term “love” is used for 0). A tied score (“deuce”) requires continued play until a two-point margin is achieved. The first player to win six games, with a lead of two games, takes the set. A match consists of the best two out of three (or three out of five) sets. Since the early 1970s, tiebreakers have been employed to eliminate marathon sets. Tennis developed in the 1870s in Britain from earlier racket-and-ball games. The first world lawn-tennis championship was held in 1877 at Wimbledon; clay- and hard-court competitions emerged later. Current international team tournaments include the Davis Cup for men and the Federation Cup (since 1963) for women's teams. The major tournaments for individual players constitute the “Grand Slam” of tennis: the national championships of Britain (Wimbledon), the U.S., Australia, and France.

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or (trademark) Ping-Pong

Game similar to lawn tennis that is played on a tabletop with wooden paddles and a small, hollow, plastic ball. 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 as to defeat the opponent's attempt to reach and return it. Both singles and doubles games are played. A match consists of the best of any odd number of games, each game being won by the player or team who first reaches 11 points or who, after 10 points each, gains a two-point lead. Invented in England in the early 20th century, it soon spread throughout the world. Since the mid-1950s, East Asian countries have dominated the sport. It has been an Olympic sport for both men and women since 1988.

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Singles racket game resembling squash rackets, played with an inflated ball the size of a tennis ball. Played in virtually the same court as squash rackets, squash tennis makes fewer demands on the legs in pursuing the ball but puts a greater premium on agility and quickness of foot and reflexes in turning and spinning.

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Variation of paddle tennis, played on a platform enclosed by a wire fence. It was devised in 1928 in Scarsdale, N.Y., U.S. The short-handled oval paddles are made of perforated plywood; the balls are made of sponge rubber. The rules are the same as for tennis, except that balls may be played off back or side walls after first striking inside the court.

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Game like tennis that is played with a rectangular paddle and a slow-bouncing rubber ball on a small court. Frank P. Beal introduced it on New York playgrounds in the early 1920s. National championship tournaments are still held in the U.S. Seealso platform tennis.

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