As the final weekend of Wimbledon is upon us, let us have a look at how tennis – with all its eccentricities and dramatic moments of suspense – evolved to become the game we know today. Just like the modern-day sport, the history of tennis is populated by towering greats – both players and commentators – who popularised the sport in its various forms and generated great excitement around the game. This article will look at the defining phases in the rich history of tennis: right from its earliest records in 12th century France to the formation of the first championships in the late 1800s when the rules of tennis were officially codified in England. ‘Tenez!’ because we are about to serve up a brief history of this legionary sporting tradition!
Jeu de paume in the 17th century
Most historians agree that the game’s earliest traceable origins lie in monastic cloisters of 12th century Northern France, although ball games have undoubtably been played in civilisations around the world for thousands of years. The modern form of tennis that eventually emerged in the late 1870s is a direct descendent of a game in which the ball was struck with bare hands and later with a glove. Jeu de paume, – or ‘game of the palm’ – was played using a hard ball made of wool or leather and was popular among the French nobility. Louis X was especially passionate about the game and had indoor courts built in Paris to allow him to play in all seasons. This design was quickly replicated in the grounds of royal palaces across Europe. It is, however, due to the notoriety of a fatal accident that the French king can so surely be named as history’s first known tennis player. In June 1316, following a particularly intense game, Louis drank large quantities of cooled wine and subsequently died, leading to immediate suspicion that he had been poisoned. Louis would not even be the first and last French king to die from a tennis related episode: Charles VIII, on his way to watch a game, struck his head on the lintel of a door and then fell unconscious shortly after the game had finished. Despite this troubling start to tennis’ evolution, royal enthusiasm for the ball game was to endure and open the way to the next important phase in tennis’ history: jeu de paume was about to metamorphosis into tenez.
It was the introduction of racquets to the game by the 16th century which formalised the game into what we now call ‘real tennis’, from which modern tennis is directly derived. The term real was first used in the 20th century by journalists as a retronym to distinguish the earlier game from the emerging craze for lawn tennis. Real tennis, played within enclosed stone courts and with a more stabilised scoring system, became a symbol of royal sporting prowess, as well as an environment for informal diplomacy. It is also around this time that the word tennis came into use, with players calling ‘Tenez!’, which can be translated as ‘hold’ or ‘take this’, to their opponent across the court to indicate that they were about to serve the ball. It is for an extremely valid reason that real tennis is sometimes referred to as the ‘Sport of Kings’. The young Henry VIII and his French counterpart, Francis I were both spirited sportsmen who often spent hours on the court. In 1519, the Venetian Ambassador wrote of Henry VIII that ‘it was the prettiest thing in the world to see him play; his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture’. The first designated tennis court at Hampton Court was built for Cardinal Wolsey between 1526 and 1529 and the 1625 replacement court is still in use to this day! In addition to Hampton Court Palace’s famed 17th century courts, a few other original real tennis courts from this period survive, including one at Falkland Palace in Fife where Mary, Queen of Scots regularly enjoyed the game. The early modern variant of the game is still played to a limited degree and there are now around 50 specialised real tennis courts in the world, with over half of these located in Britian.
This time also saw tennis come to be recognised as a professional sport of more widespread interest. In 1555 an Italian priest, Antonio Scaino da Salothe, authored the first known book on the subject of tennis. Entitled Trattato del Giuoco della Palla, he sought to provide his readers with detailed scientific analysis of various techniques and strategies related to tennis, including information on different types of tennis balls and the terrains the game could be played on. It’s in the 1570s that we see the predecessor of the modern seeding system, with Charles IX founding the first professional guild of tennis players that divided players into different categories of skill – apprentice, amateurs and professionals – whilst also overseeing the first tournament played with rackets.
Though thriving in popularity among the nobility throughout the 16th and early 17th century, the game suffered under English Puritanism and the revolutionary periods that followed, primarily for being too closely associated with Catholic clergy and absolutist monarchies. By this time too, sport in general had also become closely associated with the ‘sin’ of gambling and was therefore strictly clamped down upon by Puritan opponents. Fast forward to the late 18th century and one particular tennis court played a pivotal role in the events leading up to the French Revolution. As discontent grew in France over the economic and political crisis, 576 of the 577 members of the third estate gathered in the indoor royal tennis court near Versailles and took an oath. This pact, signed on 20th June 1789, was significant as a defining moment of collective action by French citizens against their King. They vowed not to reassemble until a full active constitution had been established in France. Once more, tennis – the recreation so favoured by the great and the good – found itself at the centre of another monarch’s demise.
‘In the summer we had another club, which met at the Red House in Battersea fields, nearly opposite Ranelagh …’ recalled the 18th century lawyer and memoirist William Hickey, ‘The game we played was an invention of our own, and called field tennis, which afforded noble exercise…. The field, which was of sixteen acres in extent, was kept in as high an order, and smooth as a bowling green.’ What Hickey is describing here is a very early version of the next phase in tennis’ evolution: that of lawn tennis. But it is Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, a retired military man, who is most widely credited with inventing lawn tennis in its most recognisable form. With tennis already having a history of providing the ideal opportunity for socialising and making connections, lawn tennis offered something even more sophisticated and appealing. With wooden rackets, a soft ball and the ability to play in the open air, it differed from real tennis which had lost some of its momentum in recent decades. Lawn tennis was marketed as a country house game, an alternative to croquet, which both men and women could play.
The timing of lawn tennis’ advent was ideal: with an increase in wealth and leisure time among the upper classes, Wingfield’s began promoting his game in the spring of 1874. He sold boxed sets containing everything that was needed to play: rubber balls imported from Germany, along with a net, poles, court markers, rackets and an all-important instruction manual outlining the rules and scoring systems. Set-up was simple and there was no longer the need to source individual items. Due to the convenience of the boxed equipment, tennis had virtually surpassed both croquet and badminton in popularity by 1875 as the outdoor game of choice for both men and women. Between July 1874 and June 1875, 1,050 of Wingfield’s tennis sets were sold, primarily to the landed aristocracy. From there on in, a true tennis craze began. It is testament to Wingfield’s momentous role in the history of tennis that by 1877 The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club had been founded and the very first Wimbledon championships were held in July of that year.
Example of a lawn tennis set manufactured shortly after the first appearance of Wingfield’s popular Sphairistiké sets in 1874.
In 1884, the club held the first Ladies’ Singles competition and for many upper-class girls, tennis was one of the only acceptable sports to partake in competitively and also offered a brilliant opportunity to meet people. As a point of personal interest, I wish to highlight an item from this period which points to how tennis represented much more than the game itself. By the 1880s, lawn tennis had become the most popular sport in Cambridge, with many colleges having their own outdoor courts, and so-called tennis parties were events of great delight for students across the university. These occasions were particularly remarkable as one of only a handful of times when male and female students would be able to freely meet. As a result, many student memoirs recorded attending ‘a tennis party without tennis’ just for the unique opportunity they provided to socialise. Below you can see a dress from the 1880s which was designed by students at Newnham College, Cambridge as part of a competition that was held perhaps in light of the new women’s championships at Wimbledon. The remit was to design a garment which was ‘the artistic combination of beauty and freedom of movement’. What may appear to us today as a severely restrictive and cumbersome dress, with its heavy ruffles and a full floor-length skirt, was in its time a symbol of freedom and opportunity for the female students of the 1880s. View the tennis dress in close-up on the UL digital collections.
Lawn Tennis Dress (Newnham College, 1880s) CUL
Just like the game itself, the history of tennis may at first appear relatively straightforward. But when you really investigate, it is complex and full of unexpected twist and turns. Throughout its evolution it has always been so much more than two people hitting a small ball back and forth across a net. From being a symbol of royal power, the setting for revolutionary beginnings to a place where women could find freedom, the tennis court has since the beginning been a place where players fight hard for every point. The adoration and excitement that millions of people across the world still feel for the game is testament to tennis’ ability to bring people together and the enduring appeal of the court’s uniquely theatrical atmosphere.
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