Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Information Concerning The Sport Of Tennis

By Julia Albridge


Hundreds of years ago, tennis was created. As surprising as it sounds, this sport was first played during religious ceremonies by European monks. They originally played it with their bare hands as opposed to rackets. It is hard to picture modern day athletes doing such a thing.

As the years continued, they realized using bare hands was outdated, so they introduced leather gloves into this activity. However, this was still a bit inconvenient, so they introduced handles that could be used to strike the ball. This was the first racket.

As crazy as using hands sounds, the first ball was wooden which sounds even crazier. It had to hurt when they were smacking it since they had to use their hands to do such a thing. Years progressed and they decided they needed a change so they started using a leather ball full of this bouncy material substance.

This activity did not come to America until 1874. It originally began in France and was predominately played by the royals. It was a very prestigious game. However, it was called "Game of the Palm" during this period of time. Fortunately, our country received the patent for tennis equipment and thus it was born in the United States.

As you can see, women still were not allowed to play, but all of that changed in 1887. That was when they created the US Womens National Singles Championship.

The US Open is a great thing in America. One of the best tournaments. It started in August 1881, yet was strictly for men. The 1900s brought the US Nation Men's Double Championship.

Scoring was used clear back into the ancient times. They believed that 60 was the complete number and considered reaching that to be "game". They made it a four point game where you achieved 15, 30, 45, and 60. This has been slightly adapted today but the only difference is 45 is now 40. Some believe they copied the numbers of a clock such as quarter after, half after, quarter til, and noon.

The courts for this were originally indoor and the players would bounce the ball off of walls. The net was 5 feet high on the sides and 3 feet in the middle. It has been modified and now you have what we see today.

Tennis has evolved over the years and became what we see today all over the world. It gains a lot of media attention and many new athletes every single day. It is a sport that can be appreciated and learned through much practice.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts with Thumbnails