Ministerul Educatiei, Cercetarii si Inovarii

Atestat limba engleza

The History of Tennis

Candidat: Gheordunescu Ruxandra- Maria, 12 J

Profesor coordonator: Negut Mihaela

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Table of Contents
1.Ancient Influences

2. Birth of Modern Game

2.1 Play of a Single Point
2.2Scoring
2.3 Rules variations
2.4 Surface
2.5 Officials

3.Formation of Grand Slams

3.1:Wimbledon
3.2 U.S Open
3.3 The French Open
3.4 The Australian Open

4.History of Davis Cup

5.Formation of ITF

6.Pro Tournaments
6.1 Pro Tours
6.2Pro Championships

7.Open Era
7.1 Formation of WCT and NTL
7.2 Formation of Grand Prix
7.3 ILTF and WCT rivalry and creation of the Association of Tennis
Professionals( ATP)
7.4 Integration

8. Formation of the ATP Tour

9.Women’ s Pro Tennis

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10. References

1.Ancient influences
Tennis can be traced as far back as the ancient Greek game of sphairistike (Greek:
Σφαιριστική), and is mentioned in literature as far back as the Middle Ages in The
Second Shepherds' Play, in which shepherds gave three gifts, including a tennis ball, to
the newborn Christ. Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's round table, plays tennis with
a group of giants in The Turke and Gowin.

The Medieval form of tennis is termed real tennis. Real tennis evolved over three
centuries from an earlier ball game played around the 12th century in France. This had
some similarities to palla, fives, pelota, or handball, involving hitting a ball with a bare
hand and later with a glove. One theory is that this game was played by monks in
monastery cloisters, based on the construction and appearance of early courts. By the
16th century, the glove had become a racquet, the game had moved to an enclosed
playing area, and the rules had stabilized. Real tennis spread in popularity throughout
royalty in Europe and reached its peak in the 16th century.

In France, François I (1515-47) was an enthusiastic player and promoter of real tennis,
building courts and encouraging play among the courtiers and commoners. His successor,
Henri II (1547-59) was also an excellent player and continued the royal French tradition.
During his reign, the first known book about tennis, Trattato del Giuoco della Palla was
written in 1555 by an Italian priest, Antonio Scaino da Salo. Two French kings died from
tennis related episodes--Louis X of a severe chill after playing and Charles VIII after
being struck with a ball. King Charles IX granted a constitution to the Corporation of
Tennis Professionals in 1571, creating the first pro tennis 'tour', establishing three levels
of professionals-- apprentice, associate, and master. The first codification of the rules of
real tennis was written by a professional named Forbet and published in 1599.

Royal interest in England began with Henry V (1413-22) but it was Henry VIII (1509-47)
who made the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at
Hampton Court on a court he had built in 1530, and on several other courts in his palaces.
It is believed that his second wife Anne Boleyn was watching a game of real tennis when
she was arrested and that Henry was playing tennis when news was brought to him of her
execution. During the reign of James I (1603-25), there were 14 courts in London.

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Real tennis racquets and balls. Photo taken by Peter Cahusac at the Falkland Palace
Royal Tennis Club.

Real tennis is recorded in literature by William Shakespeare who mentions "tennis balles"
in his play Henry V, when a basket of them is given to King Henry as a mockery of his
youth and playfulness. One of the most striking early references to the game of tennis
appears in a painting by Giambattista Tiepolo entitled The Death of Hyacinth (1752-
1753) in which a stringed raquet and three tennis balls are depicted. The theme of the
painting is the mythological story of Apollo and Hyacinth, written by Ovid and translated
into Italian in 1561 by Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara who replaced the ancient game of
discus throwing of the original text by that of pallacorda or tennis, which had achieved a
high status as a form of physical exercise at the courts in the middle of the sixteenth
century. Tiepolo's painting, displayed at the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid, was
ordered in 1752 by a German counts Wilhelm Friedrich Schaumburg Lippe, who was
known to be an avid tennis player.

The game thrived among the 17th century nobility in France, Spain, Italy, and in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, but suffered under English Puritanism. By the Age of
Napoleon, the royal families of Europe were besieged and real tennis was largely
abandoned. Real tennis played a minor role in the history of the French Revolution,
through the Tennis Court Oath, a pledge signed by French deputies in a real tennis court,
which formed a decisive early step in starting the revolution. In England, during the 18th
century and early 19th century as real tennis died out, three other racquet sports
emerged-- racquets, squash racquets, and lawn tennis (the modern game).

2.Birth of modern game

Augurio Perera's house in Edgbaston, Birmingham, where he and Harry Gem first played
the modern game of lawn tennis

Its establishment as the modern sport can be dated to two separate inventions.

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Between 1859 and 1865, in Birmingham, England, Major Harry Gem, a solicitor, and his
friend Augurio Perera, a Spanish merchant, combined elements of the game of rackets
and the Spanish ball game Pelota and played it on a croquet lawn in Edgbaston. In 1872,
both men moved to Leamington Spa and in 1874, with two doctors from the Warneford
Hospital, founded the world's first tennis club. The Courier of 23 July 1884 recorded one
of the first tennis tournaments, held in the grounds of Shrubland Hall

In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield devised a similar game for the
amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan,
Wales. He based the game on the older Real tennis. At the suggestion of Arthur Balfour,
Wingfield named it "lawn tennis," and patented the game in 1874 with an eight-page rule
book titled "Sphairistike or Lawn Tennis", but he failed to succeed in enforcing his
patent.

1896 Olympic tennis tournament match between Boland and Kasdaglis.

Wingfield borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis:

• Tennis comes from the French tenez, the imperative form of the verb tenir, to
hold: This was a cry used by the player serving in royal tennis, meaning "I am
about to serve!" (rather like the cry "Fore!" in golf).
• Racquet comes from raquette, which derives from the Arabic rakhat, meaning the
palm of the hand.
• Deuce comes from à deux le jeu, meaning "to both is the game" (that is, the two
players have equal scores).
• Love is widely believed to come from "l'oeuf", the French word for "egg",
representing the shape of a zero.
• The convention of numbering scores "15", "30" and "40" comes from quinze,
trente and quarante, which to French ears makes a euphonious sequence, or from
the quarters of a clock (15, 30, 45) with 45 simplified to 40.

Tennis is played on a rectangular, flat surface, usually grass, clay, or a hardcourt of

concrete and/or asphalt. The court is 78 feet (23.77 m) long, and its width is 27 feet
(8.23 m) for singles matches and 36 ft (10.97 m) for doubles matches. Additional clear
space around the court is required in order for players to reach overrun balls. A net is
stretched across the full width of the court, parallel with the baselines, dividing it into two
equal ends. The net is 3 feet 6 inches (1.07 m) high at the posts and 3 feet (91.4 cm) high
in the center.

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The modern tennis court owes its design to Major Walter Clopton Wingfield who, in
1873, patented a court much the same as the current one for his stické tennis
(sphairistike). This template was modified in 1875 to the court design that exists today,
with markings similar to Wingfield's version, but with the hourglass shape of his court
changed to a rectangle.

The lines that delineate the width of the court are called the baseline (farthest back) and
the service line (middle of the court). The short mark in the center of each baseline is
referred to as either the hash mark or the center mark. The outermost lines that make up
the length are called the doubles sidelines. These are the boundaries used when doubles is
being played. The lines to the inside of the doubles sidelines are the singles sidelines and
are used as boundaries in singles play. The area between a doubles sideline and the
nearest singles sideline is called the doubles alley, which is considered playable in
doubles play. The line that runs across the center of a player's side of the court is called
the service line because the serve must be delivered into the area between the service line
and the net on the receiving side. Despite its name, this is not where a player legally
stands when making a serve. The line dividing the service line in two is called the center
line or center service line. The boxes this center line creates are called the service boxes;
depending on a player's position, he will have to hit the ball into one of these when
serving. A ball is out only if none of it has hit the line upon its first bounce. All the lines
are required to be between 1 and 2 inches (51 mm) in width. The baseline can be up to
4 inches (100 mm) wide if so desired.

2.1Play of a single point

The players (or teams) start on opposite sides of the net. One player is designated the
server, and the opposing player, or in doubles one of the opposing players, is the
receiver. Service alternates between the two halves of the court. For each point, the
server starts behind his baseline, between the center mark and the sideline. The receiver
may start anywhere on their side of the net. When the receiver is ready, the server will
serve, although the receiver must play to the pace of the server.

In a legal service, the ball travels over the net (without touching it) and into the
diagonally opposite service box. If the ball hits the net but lands in the service box, this is
a let or net service, which is void, and the server gets to retake that serve. The player can
serve any number of let services in a point and they are always treated as voids and not as
faults. A fault is a serve that is long, wide, or not over the net. There is also a "foot fault",
which occurs when a player's foot touches the baseline or an extension of the center
markbefore the ball is hit. If the second service is also faulty, this is a double fault, and
the receiver wins the point. However, if the serve is in, it is considered a legal service.

A legal service starts a rally, in which the players alternate hitting the ball across the net.
A legal return consists of the player or team hitting the ball exactly once before it has
bounced twice or hit any fixtures except the net, provided that it still falls in the server's
court. The ball then travels back over the net and bounces in the court on the opposite
side. The first player or team to fail to make a legal return loses the point.

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2.2Scoring

A tennis match is composed of a number of sets. Typically for both men's and women's
matches, the first player to win two sets wins the match. At certain important tennis
tournaments for men, including all four Grand Slam tournaments and the final of the
Olympic Games, the first man to win three sets wins the match. A set consists of games,
and games, in turn, consist of points.

A game consists of a sequence of points played with the same player serving. A game is
won by the first player to have won at least four points in total and at least two points
more than the opponent. The running score of each game is described in a manner
particular to tennis: scores of zero to three points are described as "love" (or zero),
"fifteen", "thirty", and "forty" respectively. (See the main article Tennis score for the
origin of these words as used in tennis.) If at least three points have been scored by each
player, and the scores are equal, the score is "deuce". If at least three points have been
scored by each side and a player has one more point than his opponent, the score of the
game is "advantage" for the player in the lead. During informal games, "advantage" can
also be called "ad in" or "ad out", depending on whether the serving player or receiving
player is ahead, respectively.

In tournament play, the chair umpire calls the point count (e.g., "fifteen-love") after each
point. The score of a tennis match during play is always read with the serving player's
score first. After a match, the score is always read with the winning player's score first.
At the end of a game, the chair umpire also announces the winner of the game and the
overall score.

A game point occurs in tennis whenever the player who is in the lead in the game needs
only one more point to win the game. The terminology is extended to sets (set point),
matches (match point), and even championships (championship point). For example, if
the player who is serving has a score of 40-love, the player has a triple game point (triple
set point, etc.) as the player has three consecutive chances to win the game. Game points,
set points, and match points are not part of official scoring and are not announced by the
chair umpire in tournament play.

A break point occurs if the receiver, not the server, has a game point. Break points are of
particular importance in men's professional tennis because serving is generally
advantageous. The advantage to the server is much less in the women's game. A receiver
who has two (score of 15-40) or three (score of love-40) consecutive chances to win the
game has double break point or triple break point, respectively. As with game, set, and
match points, break points are not announced.

A set consists of a sequence of games played with service alternating between games,
ending when the count of games won meets certain criteria. Typically, a player wins a set
by winning at least six games and at least two games more than the opponent. If one
player has won six games and the opponent five, an additional game is played. If the
leading player wins that game, the player wins the set 7–5. If the trailing player wins the

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game, a tiebreaker is played. A tiebreaker, played under a separate set of rules, allows
one player to win one more game and thus the set, to give a final set score of 7–6. Only in
the final sets of matches at the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, the
Olympic Games, Davis Cup, and Fed Cup are tiebreakers not played. In these cases, sets
are played indefinitely until one player has a two game lead. A "love" set means that the
loser of the set won zero games. In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the
winner of the set and the overall score.

2.3Rules variations

Variations

Name Description

The first player or doubles team to win four points wins the game, regardless of
whether the player or team is ahead by two points. When the game score
No-ad reaches three points each, the receiver chooses which side of the court
(advantage court or deuce court) the service is to be delivered on the seventh
and game-deciding point.

Instead of playing multiple sets, players may play one "pro set". A pro set is
first to 8 (or 10) games by a margin of two games, instead of first to 6 games. A
Pro set
12-point tiebreaker is usually played when the score is 8-8 (or 10-10). These are
often played with no-ad scoring.

This is sometimes played instead of a third set. This is played like a regular
Match tiebreak, but the winner must win ten points instead of seven. Match tiebreaks
tiebreak are used in the Hopman Cup for mixed doubles, on the ATP and WTA tours for
doubles and as a player's choice in USTA league play.

2.4Surface

There are four main types of court surface, each different in the speed and bounce of the
ball:

Name Description

Clay Examples are red clay (used at the French Open and many other tournaments,

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 especially in Europe and Latin America) and green clay (an example of which is
Har-Tru and used mainly in the U.S.). Clay courts normally have a slower paced
ball and a fairly true bounce with more spin.

Examples are acrylic (e.g. Plexicushion used at the Australian Open, DecoTurf
Hard used at the US Open), asphalt, and concrete. Hardcourts typically have a faster-
paced ball with a very true bounce.

Used at Wimbledon. Grass courts usually have a faster-paced ball, and a more
Grass erratic bounce. Wimbledon has slowed its courts over the years. (see the cited
main article, Grass courts).

Indoo Examples are carpet and very rarely, wood. Carpet courts typically have a very
r fast-paced ball with a true but low bounce.

2.5Officials

An umpire informing two players of the rules.

In most professional play and some amateur competition, there is an officiating head
judge or chair umpire (usually referred to as the umpire), who sits in a raised chair to one
side of the court. The umpire has absolute authority to make factual determinations. The
umpire may be assisted by line judges, who determine whether the ball has landed within
the required part of the court and who also call foot faults. There also may be a net judge
who determines whether the ball has touched the net during service. In some
tournaments, certain line judges, usually those who would be calling the serve, are
replaced by electronic sensors that beep when an out call would have been made. In some
open-tournament matches, players are allowed to challenge a limited number of close
calls by means of instant replay. The US Open, the NASDAQ-100 Open in Key
Biscayne, Florida, the US Open Series, and World Team Tennis started using a
"challenge" system in 2006 and the Australian Open and Wimbledon introduced the
system in 2007. This used the Hawk-Eye system and the rules were similar to those used

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in the NFL, where a player gets a limited number of instant-replay challenges per
match/set. In clay-court matches, such as at the French Open, a call may be questioned by
reference to the mark left by the ball's impact on the court surface.

The referee, who is usually located off the court, is the final authority about tennis rules.
When called to the court by a player or team captain, the referee may overrule the
umpire's decision if the tennis rules were violated (question of law) but may not change
the umpire's decision on a question of fact. If, however, the referee is on the court during
play, the referee may overrule the umpire's decision.

Ball kids may be employed to retrieve balls, pass them to the players, and hand players
their towels. They have no adjudicative role. In rare events (e.g., if they are hurt or if they
have caused a hindrance), the umpire may ask them for a statement of what actually
happened. The umpire may consider their statements when making a decision. In some
leagues, especially junior leagues, players make their own calls, trusting each other to be
honest. This is the case for many school and university level matches. The referee or
referee's assistant, however, can be called on court at a player's request, and the referee or
assistant may change a player's call. In unofficiated matches, a ball is out only if the
player entitled to make the call is sure that the ball is out.

In tournament play, the chair umpire announces the end of the match with the well-
known phrase "Game, set, match" followed by the winning person's or team's name.

3.Formation of Grand Slams

Tennis was first played in the U.S. at the home of Mary Ewing Outerbridge on Staten
Island, New York in 1874. In 1881, the desire to play tennis competitively led to the
establishment of tennis clubs, which led to the four Grand Slams, which are regarded as
the most prestigious events in tennis circuit. Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open,
and the Australian Open became and have remained the most prestigious events in tennis.
Together these four events are called the Grand Slam (a term borrowed from bridge).

3.1The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis

tournament in the world and is widely considered the most prestigious. It has been held at
the All England Club in the London suburb of Wimbledon since 1877. It is one of the
four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, and the only one still played on grass courts.

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The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which is responsible for staging the
world's leading tennis tournament, is a private club founded in 1868, originally as 'The
All England Croquet Club'. Its first ground was situated off Worple Road, Wimbledon.

In 1875 lawn tennis, a game devised by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so
earlier and originally called 'Sphairistike', was added to the activities of the Club. In the
spring of 1877 the Club was re-titled 'The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club'
and signalled its change of name by instituting the first Lawn Tennis Championship. A
new code of laws (replacing the code until then administered by the Marylebone Cricket
Club) was drawn up for the event. These laws have stood the test of time and today's
rules are similar except for details such as the height of the net and posts and the distance
of the service line from the net.

The only event held in 1877 was the Gentlemen's Singles which was won by Spencer
Gore, an old Harrovian rackets player, from a field of 22. About 200 spectators paid one
shilling each to watch the final.

The lawns at the Ground were arranged in such a way that the principal court was
situated in the middle with the others arranged around it; hence the title 'Centre Court',
which was retained when the Club moved in 1922 to the present site in Church Road,
although not a true description of its location. However, in 1980 four new courts were
brought into commission on the north side of the ground, which meant the Centre Court
was once more correctly defined. The opening of the new No. 1 Court in 1997
emphasised the description.

By 1882 activity at the Club was almost exclusively confined to lawn tennis and that year
the word 'croquet' was dropped from the title. However, for sentimental reasons, it was
restored in 1889 and since then the title has remained The All England Lawn Tennis and
Croquet Club.

In 1884, the All England Club added Ladies' Singles and Gentlemen's Doubles. Ladies'
Doubles and Mixed Doubles were added in 1913. Until 1922, the reigning champion had
to play only in the final, against whoever had won through to challenge him. As with the
other three Grand Slam events, Wimbledon was contested by top-ranked amateur players
until the advent of the open era in tennis in 1968. Britons are very proud of the
tournament, though it is a source of national anguish and humour – no British man has
won the singles event at Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936, and no British woman
since Virginia Wade in 1977, although Annabel Croft and Laura Robson have won the
Girls' championship in 1984 and 2008 respectively. The Championship was first televised
in 1937.

Wimbledon in the 21st Century

Wimbledon is acknowledged to be the premier tennis tournament in the world and the
priority of The All England Lawn Tennis Club, which hosts The Championships, is to
maintain its leadership into the twenty-first century. To that end a Long Term Plan was

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unveiled in 1993, which will improve the quality of the event for spectators, players,
officials and neighbours.

Stage one of the Plan was completed for the 1997 Championships and involved building
in Aorangi Park the new No. 1 Court, a Broadcast Centre, two extra grass courts and a
tunnel under the hill linking Church Road and Somerset Road.

Stage two involved the removal of the old No. 1 Court complex to make way for the new
Millennium Building, providing extensive facilities for the players, press, officials and
Members, and the extension of the West Stand of the Centre Court with 728 extra seats.

Stage three has been completed with the construction of an entrance building, housing
Club staff, museum, bank and ticket office.

It is planned a new retractable roof will be in operation for the 2009 Championships
marking the first time in the tournament's history that rain will not stop play on Centre
Court. The All England Club will test the new roof at an event called A Centre Court
Celebration on Sunday 17 May 2009, which will feature exhibition matches involving
Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters and Tim Henman.

3.2The US Open has grown from an exclusive entertainment event for high society to a
championship for more than 600 male and female professional players who, as of 2008,
compete for total prize money of over US$19 million, with $1.5 million for each winner
of the singles tournaments.

The US Open for men was originally a separate tournament from the US Open for
women. The U.S. National Singles Championship (men only) was first held in August
1881 at the Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island. Only clubs that were members of
the United States National Lawn Tennis Association were permitted to enter. From 1884
through 1911, the tournament used a challenge system whereby the defending champion
automatically qualified for the next year's final. In 1915, the tournament moved to the
West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, New York. From 1921 through 1923, it was
played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia and returned to Forest Hills in
1924.

Six years after the men's nationals were first held, the first official U.S. Women's
National Singles Championship was held at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1887,
followed by the U.S. Women's National Doubles Championship in 1889. The first U.S.
Mixed Doubles Championship was held alongside the women's singles and doubles. The
first U.S. National Men's Doubles Championship was held in 1900. Tournaments were
held in the east and the west of the country to determine the best two teams, which
competed in a play-off to see who would play the defending champions in the challenge
round.

The open era began in 1968 when all five events were merged into the US Open, held at
the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York. The 1968 combined tournament

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was open to professionals for the first time. That year, 96 men and 63 women entered the
event, and prize money totaled $100,000.

In 1970, the US Open became the first of the Grand Slam tournaments to use a tiebreak at
the end of a set.The US Open was originally played on grass until Forest Hills switched
to Har-Tru clay courts in 1975. In 1978, the event moved from Forest Hills to its current
home at Flushing Meadows, and the surface changed again, to the current DecoTurf.
(Jimmy Connors is the only man to have won the US Open on more than one surface. He
won it on all three surfaces. Female player Chris Evert won it on two surfaces.)

3.3Officially named in French the Les Internationaux de France de Roland Garros or

Tournoi de Roland-Garros (the "French Internationals of Roland Garros" or "Roland
Garros Tournament" in English), the tournament is often referred to as the "French Open"
and sometimes simply as "Roland Garros".

The event began as a national tournament in 1891 as the Championat de France

International de Tennis. The first women's tournament was held in 1897. In 1912, the
French tournament was held with a different surface (at the time all tennis played was
lawn tennis), a red clay ("terre battue"), made up from the crushed wastes of red brick.
The tournament was open only to tennis players who were licensed in France through
1924.

In 1925, the French Championships opened itself to international competitors with the
event held on a grass surface alternately between the Racing Club de France and the
Stade Francais. After the Mousquetaires or Philadelphia Four (René Lacoste, Jean
Borotra, Henri Cochet, and Jacques Brugnon) won the Davis Cup on American soil in
1927, the French decided to defend the cup in 1928 at a new tennis stadium at Porte
d’Auteuil. The Stade de France had offered the tennis authorities three hectares of land
with the condition that the new stadium must be named after the World War I pilot,
Roland Garros. The new Stade de Roland Garros, and its Center Court, which was named
Court Philippe Chatrier in 1988, hosted that Davis Cup challenge.

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Suzanne Lenglen Court at Roland Garros.

From 1945 through 1947, the French Championships were held after Wimbledon, making
it the third Grand Slam event of the year.

In 1968, the French Championships became the first Grand Slam tournament to go open,
allowing both amateurs and professionals to compete.

Since 1981, new prizes have been presented Prix Orange (the most fair-play and the most
press friendly player), Prix Citron (the player with the strongest character, personality)
and Prix Bourgeon (the tennis player revelation of the year).

Another novelty, since 2006 the tournament has begun on a Sunday, featuring 12 singles
matches played on the three main courts.

Additionally, on the eve of the tournament's opening, the traditional Benny Berthet
exhibition day takes place, where the profits go to different charity associations.In March
2007, it was announced that the event will provide equal prize money for both men and
women in all rounds for the first time ever.

3. 4 The Australian Open is managed by Tennis Australia, formerly the Lawn Tennis
Association of Australia (LTAA), and was first played at the Warehouseman's Cricket
Ground in St Kilda Road, Melbourne in 1905. This facility is now known as Albert
Reserve Tennis Centre.

The tournament was first known as The Australasian Championships and then became
the Australian Championships in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969. Since 1905, the
Australian Open has been staged in five Australian and two New Zealand cities as
follows: Melbourne (50 times), Sydney (17 times), Adelaide (14 times), Brisbane (8
times), Perth (3 times), Christchurch (in 1906), and Hastings (in 1912). In 1972, when it
was decided to stage the tournament in the same city each year, the Kooyong Lawn
Tennis Club was selected because Melbourne attracted the biggest patronage.

Melbourne Park (formerly Flinders Park) was constructed in time for the 1988
tournament to meet the demands of the evolving tournament that had outgrown
Kooyong's capacity. The move to Melbourne Park was an immediate success, with a 90
percent increase in attendance in 1988 (266,436) on the previous year at Kooyong
(140,000).

Because of its geographic remoteness very few foreign players entered this tournament at
the beginning. In the 1920s, the trip by ship from Europe to Australia took about 45 days.
The first tennis players who came by aircraft were the U.S. Davis Cup players in
November 1946. Even inside the country, many players could not travel easily. When the
tournament was held in Perth, no persons from Victoria or New South Wales crossed by
train, a distance of approximately 3,000 kilometres between the east and west coasts. In

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Christchurch in 1906, of a small field of 10 players, only two Australians attended, and
the tournament was won by a New Zealander.

The first tournaments of the Australasian Championships suffered from the competition
of the other Australasian tournaments, and before 1905 all Australian states and New
Zealand had their own championships, the first being organised in 1880 in Melbourne
and called the Championship of the Colony of Victoria (later become the Championship
of Victoria). In those years the best two players by far - the Australian Norman Brookes
(whose name is now written on the men's singles cup) and the New Zealander Anthony
Wilding - almost did not play this tournament. Brookes came once and won in 1911 and
Wilding entered and won the competition twice (1906 and 1909). Their meetings in the
Victorian Championships (or at Wimbledon) were the summits that helped to determine
the best Australasian players. Even when the Australasian Championships were held in
Hastings, New Zealand, in 1912, Wilding, though three times Wimbledon champion, did
not come back to his home country. It was a recurring problem for all players of the era.
Brookes went to Europe only three times, where he reached the Wimbledon Challenge
Round once and then won Wimbledon twice. Thus, many players had never played the
Austral(as)ian amateur or open championships: the Renshaws, the Dohertys, William
Larned, Maurice McLoughlin, Beals Wright, Bill Johnston, Bill Tilden, René Lacoste,
Henri Cochet, Bobby Riggs, Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder, Pancho Gonzales, Budge
Patty, Manuel Santana, Jan Kodes and others, while Brookes, Ellsworth Vines, Jaroslav
Drobny, Manuel Orantes, Ilie Năstase at 35 years old, and Bjorn Borg came just once.

Beginning in 1969, when the first Australian Open was held on the Milton Courts at
Brisbane, the tournament was open to all players, including professionals who were not
allowed to play the traditional circuit. Nevertheless, except for the 1969 and 1971
tournaments, many of the best players missed this championship until 1982, because of
the remoteness, the inconvenient dates (around Christmas and New Year's Day), and the
low prize money — in 1970 the National Tennis League (NTL), which employed Rod
Laver, Ken Rosewall, Andres Gimeno, Pancho Gonzales, Roy Emerson and Fred Stolle,
prevented its players from entering the tournament because the guarantees were
insufficient, and the tournament was ultimately won by Arthur Ashe.

In 1983, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, and Mats Wilander entered the tournament.
Wilander won the singles title, and subsequently both his Davis Cup singles rubbers in
the Swedish loss to Australia at Kooyong shortly after. Following the 1983 Australian
Open, the International Tennis Federation prompted the Lawn Tennis Association of
Australia to change the site of the tournament, because the Kooyong stadium was then
inappropriate to serve such a big event, and in 1988 the tournament was first held at
Flinders Park (later renamed Melbourne Park) on Rebound Ace.

Before the Melbourne Park stadium era, tournament dates fluctuated as well, in particular
in the early years because of the climate of each site or exceptional events. For example,
just after World War I, the 1919 tournament was held in January 1920 (the 1920
tournament was played in March) and the 1923 tournament in Brisbane took place in
August when the weather was not too hot and wet. After a first 1977 tournament was held

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in December 1976 – January 1977, the organisers chose to move the next tournament
forward a few days, then a second 1977 tournament was played (ended on 31 December)
but this failed to attract the best players. From 1982 to 1985, the tournament was played
in mid-December, then it was decided to move the next tournament to mid-January
(January 1987), thus there was no tournament in 1986. Since 1987, the Australian Open
date has not changed. However, some top players, including Roger Federer and Rafael
Nadal, have said that the tournament is held too soon after the Christmas and New Year
holidays, thus preventing players from reaching their best form, and expressed a desire to
shift it to February.

Another change of venue was proposed in 2008, with New South Wales authorities
making clear their desire to bid for hosting rights to the tournament once Melbourne's
contract expires in 2016. The proposed relocation is to Glebe Island in Sydney. In
response, Wayne Kayler-Thomson, the head of the Victorian Events Industry Council,
was adamant that Melbourne should retain the event, and, in a scathing attack of the New
South Wales authorities, said, "It is disappointing that NSW cannot be original and seek
their own events instead of trying to cannibalise other Australian cities." Since the
proposal was made, a major redevelopment of Melbourne Park has been announced,
which is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Melbourne Park will
include ugraded and increased seating in major venues, a roof over Margaret Court
Arena, improved player facilities, a new headquarters for Tennis Australia, and a partly
covered "town square" area featuring large televisions showing current tennis play.

Panorama of Margaret Court Arena during the 2008 Australian Open.

4. History of Davis Cup

The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. The largest
annual international team competition in sports, the Davis Cup is run by the International
Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested between teams of players from competing
countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between
the United States and Great Britain. In 2005, 134 nations entered teams into the
competition. The most successful countries over the history of the tournament are the
United States (winning 32 tournaments and finishing as runners-up 29 times) and
Australia (winning 28 times and finishing second 19 times and also winning on four
occasions with New Zealand under the name 'Australasia').

The women's equivalent of the Davis Cup is the Fed Cup.

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The tournament was conceived in 1899 by four members of the Harvard University
tennis team who wished to challenge the British to a tennis competition. Once their
respective lawn tennis associations agreed, one of the four Harvard players, Dwight F.
Davis, designed a tournament format and ordered an appropriate sterling silver trophy
from Shreve, Crump & Low, purchasing it from his own funds. They in turn
commissioned a classically-styled design from William B. Durgin's of Concord, New
Hampshire, crafted by the Englishman Rowland Rhodes. Davis went on to become a
prominent politician in the United States in the 1920s, serving as US Secretary of War
from 1925-29 and as Governor-General of the Philippines from 1929-32.

The first match, between the United States and Great Britain was held at the Longwood
Cricket Club in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900. The American team, of which Dwight
Davis was a part, surprised the British by winning the first three matches. The following
year the two countries did not compete but the US won the next match in 1902. By 1905
the tournament expanded to include Belgium, Austria, France, and Australasia, a
combined team from Australia and New Zealand that competed together until 1914.

The tournament was initially titled the International Lawn Tennis Challenge although
it soon became known as the Davis Cup, after Dwight Davis' trophy.

From 1950 to 1967, Australia dominated the competition, winning the Cup 15 times in 18
years.

The United States has won the event the most times (32), followed by Australia (24 [28
including Australasia]), France and Great Britain (9 each)[includes 5 for the British
Isles], Sweden (7), and Australasia (4).

Up until 1973, the Davis Cup had only ever been won by the United States, Great Britain,
France and Australia/Australasia. This dominance is what led each of the 4 nations to
host a Grand Slam. Their domination was eventually broken in 1974, when South Africa
and India qualified for the final. India refused to play in the final that year in protest
against the South African government's apartheid policies, thus handing South Africa a
walk-over victory. (As of 2008, South Africa has never actually played a single Davis
Cup finals match.) The following year saw the first final actually being played, again
between two "outsider" nations, with Sweden beating Czechoslovakia 3-2, and since
then, several other countries have gone on to capture the trophy.

On the 100th anniversary of the tournament's founding, 129 nations competed for the
Davis Cup.

Tournament

The world's 16 best national teams are assigned to the World Group and compete
annually for the Davis Cup. Nations which are not in the World Group compete in one of
three regional zones (Americas, Asia/Oceania, and Europe/Africa). The competition is
spread over four weekends during the year. Each elimination round between competing

17
nations is held in one of the countries. The ITF determines the host countries for all
possible matchups before each year's tournament.

The World Group is the top group and includes the world's best 16 national teams. Teams
in the World Group play a four-round elimination tournament. Teams are seeded based
on a ranking system released by the ITF, taking into account previous years' results. The
defending champion and runner-up are always the top two seeds in the tournament. The
losers of the first-round matches are sent to the World Group playoff round, where they
play along with winners from Group I of the regional zones. The playoff round winners
play in the World Group for the next year's tournament, while the losers play in Group I
of their respective regional zone.

Each of the three regional zones is divided into four groups. Groups I and II play
elimination rounds, with the losing teams facing relegation to the next-lower group. The
teams in Groups III and those in Group IV play a round-robin tournament with promotion
and relegation.

5. The International Tennis Federation

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis,
made up of 205 national tennis associations.

It was established as the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) by 12 national

associations meeting at a conference in Paris, France on 1 March 1913. In 1924 it became
the officially recognised organisation with authority to control lawn tennis throughout the
world, with official 'ILTF Rules of Tennis'. In 1977 it dropped the word 'lawn' from its
title, recognising that most tennis was not played on grass.

Originally based in Paris, its funds were moved to London, UK during World War II;
From that time onwards the ILTF/ITF has been run from London. Until 1987, the ITF
was based at Wimbledon, it then moved to Barons Court, near Queens Club, and then
moved again in 1998 to the Bank of England Sports Ground, Roehampton.

Its official annual is The ITF Year, describing the activities of the ITF over last 12
months. This replaced World of Tennis.

The ITF operates the three major national team competitions in the sport, the Davis Cup
for men, the Fed Cup for women and the Hopman Cup, mixed teams. The ITF is also
responsible for organizing the four Grand Slams: the Australian Open, the French Open,
Wimbledon, and the US Open.

While the ATP Tour and WTA Tour control most other high-level professional
tournaments, the ITF also organizes the lowest tier tournaments in the world of
professional tennis. On the men's side, this is known as the ITF Men's Circuit, consisting

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of one-week tournaments called "Futures". The ITF also ran four-week satellite
tournaments of roughly the same quality level, but they were discontinued after the 2006
season. Virtually every male professional player started by playing on the ITF Men's
Circuit.

The ITF is responsible for maintaining an international under-18 junior circuit for boys
and girls.

6. Pro Tournaments
The main events of the professional circuit comprised head-to-head competition and Pro
Championships, which are regarded as Grand Slam tournaments till Open Era in 1968.

The popular tennis professional players were under contract with a professional promoter
during the pre-Open Era. For example, popular players like Suzanne Lenglen and Vincent
Richards were engaged by Charles C. Pyle to tour in North America. The professionals
under contract were controlled by their promoters and could not always play the
tournaments they wanted while the amateur players followed their national (and
international) federation. For example, In 1939, Norman Brookes, president of the
Australian Federation, decided not to send Australian players to Wimbledon because he
wanted them to prepare for the Davis Cup. Therefore, great Aussie players as John
Bromwich or Adrian Quist went to the USA to capture the Cup but didn't play
Wimbledon. Consequently during the first century of tennis the players had absolutely no
power.

6.1 Pro Tours

Most professionals played in separate professional events, mostly on tours in head-to-

head competition referred as pro tours. In 1926, promoter C.C. Pyle established the first
professional tennis tour with a group of American and French tennis players playing
exhibition matches to paying audiences. The most notable of these early professionals
were the American Vinnie Richards and the Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen. Once a
player turned pro he or she could not compete in the major (amateur) tournaments. In the
years before the open era, male professionals often played more frequently in tours than
in tournaments because a head-to-head tour between two tennis stars was much more
remunerative than a circuit of pro tournaments and the number of professional
tournaments was small. For example, Fred Perry earned U.S. $91,000 in a 1937 North
American tour against Ellsworth Vines but won only U.S. $450 for his 1938 victory at
the U.S. Pro Tennis Championships. Vines probably never entered a tournament between
the London Indoor Professional Championship in October 1935, which he won, and the
May 1939 edition of that tournament, which he lost. In 1937, Vines played 70 matches on
two tours and no matches in tournaments. Even in the 1950s, some professionals
continued to play numerous tour matches. During his first five months as a professional
(January through May 1957), Ken Rosewall played 76 matches on a tour against Pancho

19
Gonzales but only 9 matches in tournaments. As an example of the small number of
professional tournaments held before the open era, Joe McCauley has determined that for
1952, only 7 professional tournaments were played by the top international players, and 2
other professional tournaments (the British Pro and the German Pro) were reserved for
domestic players. It was only during the 1960s that professional tournaments became
more significant than tours.

6.2 Pro Championships

In addition to head-to-head events there were several annual professional tournaments

that were called championship tournaments. The most prestigious was the Wembley
Professional Championship at Wembley in England, played between 1934 and 1990, that
was unofficially considered the world's championship through 1967. The oldest was the
United States Professional Championship, played between 1927 and 1999. Between 1955
and 1962, it was played indoors in Cleveland and was called the World Professional
Championships. The third major tournament was the French Professional Championship,
played between 1930 and 1968. The British and American championships continued into
the Open era but devolved to the status of minor tournaments.

These three tournaments until 1967 are referred as the professional Grand Slam
tournaments by tennis historians such as Robert Geist and Raymond Lee.

7. Open Era

7.1The popular tennis professional players were under contract with a professional
promoter during the pre-Open Era. Popular players like Suzanne Lenglen and Vincent
Richards were engaged by Charles C. Pyle to tour in North America. The professionals
under contract were controlled by their promoters and could not play the tournaments
they wanted to while the amateur players followed their national (and international)
federation. For example, In 1939, Norman Brookes, president of the Australian
Federation decided not to send Australian players to Wimbledon for the preparation for
the Davis Cup, great Aussie players as John Bromwich or Adrian Quist went to the USA
to capture the Cup but didn't play Wimbledon. Consequently during the first century of
tennis the players had absolutely no power.

In 1967, some professionals were independent including Lewis Hoad, Luis Ayala, and
Owen Davidson but, most of the best players were under contract.

• National Tennis League (NTL) by George McCall

o Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, Andres Gimeno, Pancho
Gonzales and Fred Stolle
• World Championship Tennis (WCT) by Dave Dixon (succeeded by Lamar Hunt)

20
 o Handsome Eight: John Newcombe, Tony Roche, Nikki Pilic, Roger
Taylor, Pierre Barthès, Earl "Butch" Buchholz, Cliff Drysdale and Dennis
Ralston

So the professionals under contract were controlled by their promoters and could not play
the tournaments they want. In 1968, the WCT players weren't allowed to participate by
their own boss in French Open. In 1970, the NTL players didn't play the Australian Open
because their organization didn't receive a guarantee. In 1970, neither WCT nor NTL
players played in the French Open.

7.2 Formation of Grand Prix

In Open era, promoters of NTL and WCT began to control the whole game. For example,
if Wimbledon didn't want to pay their price, the promoters held their players out of the
event. To prevent such a control, Jack Kramer, the best player in the world in the 1940s
and 1950s and a promoter himself, conceived the Grand Prix in 1969. He described it as
"a series of tournaments with a money bonus pool that would be split up on the basis of a
cumulative point system. This would encourage the best players to compete regularly in
the series, so that they could share in the bonus at the end and qualify for a special
championship tournament that would climax the year".

In 1970, only a few contract players showed up for the French Open. The International
Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), predecessor of International Tennis Federation (ITF),
alarmed by the control of the promoters, approved Kramer's proposition of Grand Prix.
The first Grand Prix tournament was the British Hard Court Championships played on
clay at Bournemouth on April 28. Twenty seven tournaments including the three Grand
Slams, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open were played that year with Stockholm
tournament ended on November 1. The independent professionals along with a few
contract players entered the Grand Prix circuit. The contract players could play the Grand
Prix events if they were allowed and had time left apart from their own circuit.

7.3 ILTF-WCT rivalry and creation of the Association of Tennis Professionals

(ATP)

The first WCT tournaments were held in February 1968 and the first NTL tournaments in
March 1968. In spring 1970, the WCT absorbed the NTL.

In 1971, the WCT run its circuit with 20 tournaments and the year-ending WCT Finals
held in November. At the end of 1970, a panel of journalists ranked the best players in
the world. This ranking served to the WCT organization to sent invitations to the 32 best
men to play the 1971 WCT circuit: among these 32 players, those who declined the
invitation and stayed independent professionals (as opposed to the WCT contract pros)
were Ilie Năstase, Stan Smith, Jan Kodeš, Željko Franulović and Clark Graebner. So in
1971, the majority of the best players in the world played mainly the WCT circuit and not
the Grand Prix circuit, which principally consisted of the independent professionals.

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The Australian Open was a WCT competition whereas Roland Garros, Wimbledon and
Forest Hills were Grand Prix events. The conflict between the ILTF running the Grand
Prix and the WCT was so strong that Rosewall, Gimeno, Laver, Emerson and other WCT
players didn't enter the U.S. Open. There was a third professional circuit that year with
the U.S Indoor Circuit run by Bill Riordan, future manager of Jimmy Connors.

In 1972, the struggle between ILTF and WCT ended with ILTF's ban of the contract pro
players from January to July and consequently the WCT contract pros were strictly
forbidden to play the Grand Prix circuit including Roland Garros and Wimbledon. At the
U.S. Open all the players entered the tournament at least and created their own syndicate,
the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).

In 1973, there were four rival pro circuits: the WCT circuit, the Grand Prix circuit, the
U.S. indoor circuit with Connors and Ilie Nastase and the European Spring Circuit with
Nastase as their star.

7.4 Integration

Until 1977, the WCT and Grand Prix circuits were separate and in 1978 the Grand Prix
circuit integrated the WCT circuit with its eight tournaments. In 1982, the WCT circuit
came out independent again and created a more complex WCT ranking, similar to the
ATP ranking. Because of WCT's failure in the 1980s, the Grand Prix circuit then became
the main professional circuit. The governance of the Grand Prix was led by the Men's
International Professional Tennis Council (MIPTC), later renamed to Men's Tennis
Council (MTC).

8. Formation of the ATP Tour

In 1990, the Association of Tennis Professionals, led by Hamilton Jordan, replaced the
MTC as the governing body of men's professional tennis, and the ATP Tour was born.
With the beginning of the ATP Tour in 1990, the nine most prestigious events on the
Tour became known as Super Nine events. The label 'Grand Prix' was done away with by
the ATP Tour at the beginning of 1990. Twelve of the more prestigious Grand Prix
events became International Series Gold tournaments, while the remaining ones
(approximately 60) became known as International Series events. The format has been
continued from the 1998 season to the present. The Super Nine events were later renamed
the Masters Series tournaments and offered the best fields, the best facilities and the most
prize money after the Grand Slam tournaments. In 2000, the Grand Slam tournaments
and the Masters Series tournaments became the only mandatory events in tennis. Players
were automatically entered and the Masters Series and the Slams became the baseline for
player rankings.

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9. Women’s Pro Tennis
Women's professional tennis began in 1947 with a short-lived series of exhibition
matches between Pauline Betz and Sarah Palfrey Cooke, both U.S. National Champions.
In 1950-51, Bobby Riggs signed Betz and Gussie Moran to play in a pro tour with Jack
Kramer and Pancho Segura, with Betz dominating Moran. Althea Gibson turned pro in
1958 and joined with Karol Fageros ("the Golden Goddess") to play one-nighters as the
opening act for the Harlem Globetrotters for one season. For the next nine years, there
was virtually no women's pro tennis until 1967 when promoter George McCall signed
Billie Jean King, Ann Jones, Françoise Durr, and Rosie Casals to join his tour of eight
men for two years.[40] The pro women then played as independents as the Open Era
began.

When the pro men's Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) came into being in 1972,
promoter Jack Kramer invited pro women to play at the Pacific Southwest
Championships but offered only $7,500 in prize money versus the men's total of $50,000.
When Kramer refused to adjust the prize money, Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals urged
a boycott but instead a separate women's tournament was established by Gladys
Heldman, American publisher of World Tennis magazine, with the sponsorship of
Virginia Slims cigarettes. The WT Women's Pro Tour was set up in 1971-72. The new
tour offered prize money nearly ten times more than other pro women's tennis events but
it also created a great deal of friction with the USLTA which initially would not sanction
the tour. After a series of ultimatums and contract disputes, the conflict was resolved with
Virginia Slims sponsoring individual events and the USLTA taking over the tour. In
1973, the U.S. Open provided equal prize money to men and women players for the first
time. Billie Jean King, the most visible advocate for the women's cause, benefitted
greatly under the improved pay regime, earning over $100,000 in 1971 and 1972. In the
famous "Battle of the Sexes" exhibition match against crafty Bobby Riggs in September
1973, King brought even more media attention to tennis, and to women professionals in
all walks of life.

The Women's Tennis Association, formed in 1973, is the principal organizing body of
women's professional tennis. It organizes the WTA Tour, the worldwide professional
tennis tour for women. From 1971-1978, the event was known as the Virginia Slims
Championships. When Avon took over as the tour sponsor from 1979–1982, the event
was known as the Avon Championships. Virginia Slims returned as the tour sponsor in
1983 and the event name reverted to the Virginia Slims Championships. It remained that
way until 1994 when Virginia Slims ended their sponsorship of the WTA Tour. In 1995,
without a tour sponsor, the event was simply referred to as the WTA Tour
Championships. Since then, the tournament has been named after other event sponsors.
From 1996 to 2000, it was called the Chase Championships. In 2001, it was the Sanex
Championships while in 2002, it was the Home Depot Championships. In 2003 and 2004,
the event name was once again the WTA Tour Championships. Since 2005, with Sony
Ericsson taking over as tour sponsor, the event has been called the Sony Ericsson
Championships. From 1984–1998, the final of the championships was a best-of-five-set
match – making it the only tournament on the women's tour to have a best-of-five-set

23
match at any round of the competition. In 1999, the final reverted to being a best-of-
three-set match, as had been the case from 1971–1983. The WTA Tour Championships
are generally considered to be the fifth most prestigious event on the women's tour after
the four Grand Slam tournaments.

10. References
Richard Schickel, The World of Tennis, 1975, New York, The Ridge Press

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

The Beginnings Of Lawn Tennis - University of South Carolina Libraries

Max Robertson, The Encyclopedia of Tennis, 1974, The Viking Press, New York

THE GAME My 40 Years in Tennis, by Jack Kramer with Frank Deford

24