Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object of the game is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. The player who is unable to return the ball validly will not gain a point, while the opposite player will.
Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society and at all ages. The sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including wheelchair users. The original forms of tennis developed in France during the late Middle Ages. The modern form of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis. It had close connections both to various field (lawn) games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport today called real tennis.
The rules of modern tennis have changed little since the 1890s. Two exceptions are that until 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point-challenge system, which allows a player to contest the line call of a point, a system known as Hawk-Eye. (Full article...)
Roland-Garros (French:[ʁɔlɑ̃ɡaʁos]), colloquially referred to as the French Open (French: Internationaux de France de tennis) in anglophone countries, is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and venue are named after the French aviator Roland Garros. The Roland-Garros is the premier clay court championship in the world and the only Grand Slam tournament currently held on this surface. It is chronologically the second of the four annual Grand Slam tournaments, occurring after the Australian Open and before Wimbledon and the US Open. Until 1975, the Roland-Garros was the only major tournament not played on grass. Between the seven rounds needed for a championship, the clay surface characteristics (slower pace, higher bounce), and the best-of-five-set men's singles matches, the Roland-Garros is widely regarded as the toughest and most physically demanding tournament in tennis. (Full article...)
Wimbledon is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments, the others being the Australian Open, the French Open, and the US Open. Wimbledon is the only major still played on grass, the traditional tennis playing surface. Also, it is the only Grand Slam that retains a night-time curfew, though matches can now continue until 11.00 pm under the lights. (Full article...)
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The WTA Finals (formerly known as the WTA Tour Championships or WTA Championships) is the season-ending championship of the WTA Tour. It is the most significant tennis event in the women's annual calendar after the four majors, as it features the top eight singles players and top eight doubles teams based on their results throughout the season.
The tournament predates the WTA Tour and started in 1972 as the championship tournament of the Tour's predecessor: the Virginia Slims Circuit. Since 2003, the tournament has used a unique format not seen in other WTA Tour events: the players are separated into two groups of four, within which they each play three round-robin matches. The top two players or teams from each group after the round-robin stage move on to a knock-out format in the semifinals and final to determine the champion. (Full article...)
The tournament was held at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park in Key Biscayne, Florida from 1987 through 2018, featuring the top 96 men and women tennis players in the world. It moved to Miami Gardens for 2019. Following the Indian Wells Open, it is the second event of the "Sunshine Double" — a series of two elite, consecutive hard court tournaments in the United States in early spring. (Full article...)
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The Australian Hard Court Championships was a former professional tennis tournament established in 1938 and held until 2008. The event was played on clay courts until 1977 when it switched to hard courts. The tournament was a combined event for men and women until the end of the 1980s. In 2009, Tennis Australia merged the separate men's and women's tournaments into a new combined tournament called the Brisbane International. (Full article...)
The tournament sees players competing for their country in four singles and one doubles matches, known as rubbers, over the course of three days, with the team that wins three rubbers progressing. The countries are divided into groups based upon their location or performance in previous years. The Davis Cup World Group is the top level of the competition and features matches between players from the top 16 countries at the start of the year. Countries that lose their first round match face a relegation play-off against winning countries from the continental zones. World Group winning countries progress to the quarter-finals. Nations have to win a further three ties in order to claim the position of Davis Cup champions.The United States are the most successful nation in the history of the competition, with 32 victories. Australia are second with 28 (individually or in a combined Australasia team) and Great Britain and France are tied for third with 10. Teams from Europe have won the competition the most with 48 victories, followed by North America with 33 and Oceania with 28. (Full article...)
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In tennis, the strings are the part of a tennis racquet which make contact with the ball. The strings form a woven network inside the head (or "hoop") of the racquet. Strings have been made with a variety of materials and possess varying properties that have been measured, such as dynamic stiffness, tension retention, thickness (gauge), string texture (shape of the string), and rebound efficiency. (Full article...)
The 1877 Wimbledon Championship was a men's tennis tournament held at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club (AEC & LTC) in Wimbledon, London. It was the world's first official lawn tennis tournament, and was later recognised as the first Grand Slam tournament or "Major". The AEC & LTC had been founded in July 1868, as the All England Croquet Club. Lawn tennis was introduced in February 1875 to compensate for the waning interest in croquet. In June 1877 the club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, needed to maintain the lawns. A set of rules was drawn up for the tournament, derived from the first standardised rules of tennis issued by the Marylebone Cricket Club in May 1875.
The Gentlemen's Singles competition, the only event of the championship, was contested on grass courts by 22 players who each paid one guinea to participate. The tournament started on 9 July 1877, and the final – delayed for three days by rain – was played on 19 July in front of a crowd of about 200 people who each paid an entry fee of one shilling. The winner received 12 guineas in prize money and a silver challenge cup, valued at 25 guineas, donated by the sports magazine The Field. Spencer Gore, a 27-year-old rackets player from Wandsworth, became the first Wimbledon champion by defeating William Marshall, a 28-year-old real tennis player, in three straight sets in a final that lasted 48 minutes. The tournament made a profit of £10. An analysis made after the tournament led to some modifications of the rules regarding the court dimensions. (Full article...)
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Tennis for Two on a DuMont Lab Oscilloscope Type 304-A
Tennis for Two (also known as Computer Tennis) is a sports video game that simulates a game of tennis, and was one of the first games developed in the early history of video games. American physicist William Higinbotham designed the game in 1958 for display at the Brookhaven National Laboratory's annual public exhibition after learning that the government research institution's Donner Model 30 analog computer could simulate trajectories with wind resistance. He designed the game within a few hours, after which he and technician Robert V. Dvorak built it over a period of three weeks. The game was displayed on an oscilloscope and played with two custom aluminum controllers. Its visuals show a representation of a tennis court viewed from the side, and players adjust the angle of their shots with a knob on their controller and try to hit the ball over the net by pressing a button.
The game was very popular during the three-day exhibition, with players lining up to see the game, especially high school students. It was shown again the following year with a larger oscilloscope screen and a more complicated design that could simulate different gravity levels. It was then dismantled and largely forgotten until the late 1970s when Higinbotham testified in court about the game during lawsuits between Magnavox and Ralph H. Baer over video game patents. Since then, it has been celebrated as one of the earliest video games, and Brookhaven has made recreations of the original device. Under some definitions Tennis for Two is considered the first video game, as while it did not include any technological innovations over prior games, it was the first computer game to be created purely as an entertainment product rather than for academic research or commercial technology promotion. (Full article...)
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Arthur Gore (3 Major singles, 1 Major doubles, 2 Olympic Golds, singles, World No.1 )
This was a tennis rivalry played between British player Arthur Gore and the New Zealand player Anthony Wilding, which in their respective careers met 14 times from 1905 until 1912.
Gore and Wilding were both former World number 1 and both Grand Slam winners with Gore winning three slam titles and two olympic golds and Wilding winning six slam titles and three world championship titles both Davis Cup champions. (Full article...)
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The Williams sisters rivalry was a tennis rivalry between sisters Venus Williams and Serena Williams (born June 17, 1980, and September 26, 1981, respectively), regarded as two of the best woman tennis players for over two decades. They met 31 times in professional tournaments between 1998 and 2020, with Serena leading their head-to-head 19–12.
Both sisters have been ranked world No. 1 in singles: Venus for a total of 11 weeks, beginning in February 2002; Serena for a total of 316 weeks, beginning in July 2002. Venus has won 49 singles titles over the course of her career, and Serena won 73. (Full article...)
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The New York Sportimes were a professional tennis team competing in World TeamTennis (WTT). The team was originally based in eastern Long Island from 2000 to 2002, before moving to Westchester County, New York in 2003, and then to New York City in 2009. The team was founded as the New York Hamptons in 2000, before changing its name to the New York Sportimes in 2003. In 2005, the team made its first playoff appearance and went on to defeat the Newport Beach Breakers in the WTT Final to win its first King Trophy.
On February 14, 2011, WTT announced that the New York Sportimes and New York Buzz had merged and would play the 2011 season as the New York Sportimes. In the three seasons following the merger, the Sportimes played 12 home matches in New York City and nine in the Capital District. On January 16, 2014, Claude Okin, CEO of the New York Sportimes announced that the franchise had been sold to businessman Russell Geyser, and the team would be relocated to San Diego, California and renamed the San Diego Aviators. (Full article...)
The Open Era is the current era of professional tennis. It began in 1968 when the Grand Slam tournaments allowed professional players to compete with amateurs, ending the division that had persisted since the dawn of the sport in the 19th century. The first open tournament was the 1968 British Hard Court Championships held in April, followed by the inaugural open Grand Slam tournament, the 1968 French Open, a month later. Unless otherwise sourced, all records are based on data from the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and the official websites of the four Grand Slam tournaments. All rankings-related records are based on ATP rankings, which began in 1973. The names of active players appear in boldface. (Full article...)
Image 7Rohan Bopanna was part of the 2024 winning men's doubles team. It was his first major title. (from Australian Open)
Image 8The Melbourne Sports and Entertainment precinct on the banks of the Yarra River in 2010. (from Australian Open)
Image 9Barbora Strýcová was part of the 2023 winning women's doubles title. It was her second major title and her second Wimbledon title. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Image 11Hsieh Su-wei was part of the winning women's doubles team in 2023. (from French Open)
Image 12Hsieh Su-wei was part of the 2024 winning women's doubles and mixed doubles team. It was her seventh major title in women's doubles and first major title in mixed doubles. (from Australian Open)
Image 13Su-Wei Hsieh was part of the 2023 winning women's doubles title. It was her sixth major title and her fourth Wimbledon title. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Image 14Iga Świątek, the 2023 women's singles champion. It was her fourth major title and her third at the French Open. (from French Open)
Image 15Court Philippe Chatrier during the 2013 French Open. (from French Open)
Image 21Commemorative plaque at Court 18 marking the longest tennis match in history. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Image 22Novak Djokovic, the 2023 men's singles champion. It was his record-breaking twenty-third major title and his third at the French Open. (from French Open)
Image 24Elise Mertens was part of the 2024 winning women's doubles team. It was her fourth major title and second at the Australian Open. (from Australian Open)
Image 29Mate Pavić was part of the 2023 winning mixed doubles team. It was his first mixed doubles title at Wimbledon, third mixed doubles major title, and sixth overall major title. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Image 30Aryna Sabalenka, 2024 women's singles champion. It was her second major title and her second at the Australian Open. (from Australian Open)
Image 31Arthur Ashe Stadium with the roof closed in 2018. (from US Open (tennis))
Image 38Matthew Ebden was part of the 2024 winning men's doubles team. It was his second major title and first at the Australian Open. (from Australian Open)
Image 51Wimbledon operates a ticket resale system where returned Show Court tickets can be purchased. All proceeds go to charity. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Image 52Court 10. On the outside courts there is no reserved seating. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Daria Sergeyevna Kasatkina (born 7 May 1997) is a Russian professional tennis player. She made her top-ten debut in the WTA rankings towards the end of the 2018 season and has been ranked as high as world No. 8, achieved on 24 October 2022. Kasatkina has won six singles titles and one title in doubles on the WTA Tour.
Born to athletic parents who were nationally ranked in athletics and ice hockey, Kasatkina began playing tennis at age six at the insistence of her older brother. She excelled as a junior, winning the European 16s championship and one junior Grand Slam singles title at the 2014 French Open. Kasatkina quickly ascended up the professional rankings, reaching No. 32 in the world while still 18 years old and winning her first WTA title in 2017 as a teenager at the Charleston Open. She rose to prominence in 2018 by finishing runner-up to fellow up-and-coming player Naomi Osaka at the Premier Mandatory Indian Wells Open in a match regarded as representing a new wave of women's tennis. Kasatkina also has won the biggest titles of her career at the Kremlin Cup and at the St. Petersburg Trophy at home in Russia. Following three successful seasons on the WTA Tour, Kasatkina struggled in 2019, falling into the bottom half of the top 100. However, she had a resurgent 2021, claiming two titles to return to the top 30, followed by another two titles in 2022, marking her to return to the top 10. (Full article...)