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It began almost a thousand years ago as a game played with bare hands in medieval France.
It eventually became a favorite pastime of kings, spread across Europe, and underwent a dramatic transformation during the Victorian era.
Along the way, changes in equipment, playing surfaces, and technology fundamentally changed how people played the game.
What began as an aristocratic diversion eventually became one of the world’s most popular sports.
Learn more about the fascinating history of tennis on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
In this podcast, I’ve covered the origins of many different sports. Most of them had origins that look nothing like the modern version of the game.
Tennis, on the other hand, is one of the oldest sports still played today in a somewhat recognizable form. Its history stretches back almost a thousand years, from medieval French monasteries to European royal courts, and it eventually became one of the world’s most popular international sports.
The earliest recognizable ancestor of tennis emerged in France, probably during the 12th century. The game was called jeu de paume, meaning “game of the palm,” because players originally struck the ball with their bare hands. There were no racquets.
Its earliest forms were relatively simple. Players hit a ball back and forth across a courtyard or other open space, attempting to make a shot that their opponent could not return.
The game is often associated with French monasteries, where monks played recreational ball games in enclosed courtyards, but no hard evidence conclusively supports this.
Over time, players began to wear leather gloves to protect their hands. Eventually, they experimented with wooden paddles and other implements.
By the late Middle Ages, versions of the game had become increasingly sophisticated. Players used nets or other dividing lines, and more formal rules developed. The game spread from religious communities and towns into the French aristocracy.
The word tennis itself almost certainly comes from the French word tenez, roughly meaning “take this” or “receive.”
Players traditionally called out this word when serving the ball, warning their opponent that play was beginning.
By the 14th century, tennis was a fashionable activity among the French nobility. King Louis X of France was an enthusiastic player. According to contemporary accounts, he became ill in 1316 after drinking chilled wine following strenuous exercise, which is said to have been a game of tennis.
Other French monarchs embraced the sport, and royal residences featured indoor tennis courts. Tennis also reached England, where it became popular among the nobility during the late medieval and Tudor periods.
Perhaps its most famous royal enthusiast was King Henry VIII. Henry played tennis regularly and commissioned a court at Hampton Court Palace around 1530. Although the original court was subsequently rebuilt in the 17th century, the site remains one of the most famous surviving locations associated with the early history of tennis.
By the 16th century, the sport was firmly established in France and England. The version played during this period is now known as real tennis in Britain, court tennis in the United States, and is still called jeu de paume in France.
Real tennis differed substantially from the modern game. It was generally played inside specialized buildings with unusually complicated layouts. Unlike a modern rectangular court, a real tennis court featured walls, galleries, sloping roofs, and openings that could influence play.
Players could strike the ball off certain walls and architectural features and some openings served as scoring targets, while special rules governed where the ball bounced.
The net was also unusual, with a significantly different height at its center and ends.
A distinctive feature of real tennis was the chase system, under which certain shots established a mark on the court that players later had to beat. This gave the game a tactical dimension quite unlike modern tennis.
The equipment was also different. Players made the balls by hand from materials such as cork, wool, or hair, with an outer covering of leather or cloth. They were generally less elastic than modern tennis balls and behaved quite differently when struck.
By the 16th century, wooden rackets strung with animal gut had become standard equipment. These rackets frequently had asymmetrical or slightly angled heads, reflecting the complicated geometry of real tennis courts.
Some people still play Real Tennis. About 45 active Real Tennis courts exist worldwide, and tournaments are held regularly. Videos are available online, and it’s like an odd mix of tennis, racquetball, and squash.
One of tennis’s most enduring mysteries is its scoring.
Instead of counting points as 1, 2, 3, and 4, tennis uses 15, 30, 40, and game. This unusual system dates back to the era of real tennis, but the precise origin remains uncertain.
One familiar theory proposes that scores were originally recorded using the quarters of a clock face. Under this explanation, successive points advanced a hand through 15, 30, 45, and 60.
Although the clock theory is widely repeated, insufficient historical evidence establishes it as the definitive origin.
The progression from 45 to 40 likely emerged as part of simplifying the spoken scoring system, but this, too, is unknown
The term deuce is commonly linked to the French phrase à deux, which expresses the need to win two consecutive points from that position.
The use of love for zero is more mysterious.
A popular explanation connects it to the French word l’œuf, meaning “egg,” because an egg resembles the numeral zero. However, another possibility is that it derives from the English expression “playing for love,” meaning playing without financial stakes.
Modern tennis originated in Britain in the mid-19th century. At the time, Britain was experiencing rapid growth in organized recreational sports.
Croquet became fashionable among affluent families, and many large homes had carefully maintained lawns where people could play outdoor games.
Several inventors began experimenting with ways to adapt racket games for outdoor lawns. Two important pioneers were Harry Gem, an English lawyer, and Augurio Perera, a Spanish-born businessman living in Birmingham.
In the late 1850s and 1860s, they developed a game that combined elements of earlier racket sports and played it on grass.
In 1874, Gem and Perera helped found a tennis club in Leamington Spa, often cited as the world’s first lawn tennis club.
However, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield is usually credited with popularizing modern lawn tennis.
In 1874, Wingfield obtained a patent for a portable court arrangement for a new outdoor version of tennis. He marketed the game under the name Sphairistikè, derived from Greek and meaning “ball play.”
Wingfield was not necessarily the first person to conceive of lawn tennis. His major contribution was developing and commercially distributing a standardized game people could buy and play at home.
He sold his equipment as a boxed set containing rackets, balls, a net, posts, and instructions. This was an important innovation because it let people create a tennis court without building a specialized structure.
Wingfield’s court was also unusual. Instead of the familiar rectangle, it was shaped somewhat like an hourglass, narrowing at the net. The net was also considerably higher than the modern version.
These characteristics didn’t last long. Within a few years, players and clubs began adopting rectangular courts and more standardized dimensions.
The name Sphairistikè also soon gave way to the simpler term lawn tennis.
The most important early tournament in modern tennis’s development was Wimbledon.
The All England Croquet Club had been founded in 1868 in Wimbledon, then a suburban area outside London.
As lawn tennis grew in popularity, the club began accommodating the new sport. In 1877, it organized the first Wimbledon tennis championship.
The tournament featured 22 male competitors, with Spencer Gore winning.
The event mattered not only for its competitive significance, but also because organizers established rules that closely resemble the modern game.
The courts were rectangular, and their basic dimensions became the model for modern tennis.
A court measured 78 feet in length, with a width of 27 feet for singles. The doubles court was 36 feet wide.
These dimensions remain unchanged today. Subsequent revisions standardized the net height, eventually settling at 3 feet in the center and 3 feet 6 inches at the posts.
Women first entered the Wimbledon singles championship in 1884, with Maud Watson winning the inaugural event.
Tennis spread rapidly outside Britain during the final decades of the 19th century.
The expansion of the British Empire played an important role.
British military officers, colonial officials, and expatriate communities introduced the sport across the empire.
Tennis clubs appeared in India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and other locations.
The game also spread to countries outside British control.
In the United States, Mary Ewing Outerbridge is traditionally credited with helping introduce lawn tennis after observing the game in Bermuda in the 1870s.
American tennis clubs soon appeared in several cities. The first U.S. National Championships were held in 1881 at Newport, Rhode Island, and the tournament eventually developed into what is now the US Open.
France was another important center for tennis. French clubs developed their own competitive traditions, and national championships began in 1891.
Tennis also took hold in Australia, where the Australasian Championships began in 1905 and later became the Australian Open.
By the early 20th century, tennis had become an international sport.
In 1900, the United States and Britain organized the first international challenge competition. It became known as the Davis Cup, named after Dwight F. Davis, one of its founders. The competition subsequently expanded to include national teams from around the world.
Tennis debuted at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, with women’s tennis joining in 1900.
The sport remained part of the Olympics through 1924, although disagreements over eligibility and amateur regulations contributed to its removal. It would not return as a full medal sport until 1988.
As noted, the original surface for all tennis was grass. However, over time, different surfaces were used.
Unlike basketball or soccer, where the basic playing environment is relatively uniform at elite levels, tennis has historically embraced several types of courts.
Each surface changes the ball’s speed, its bounce, player movement, and the tactics they use.
Clay became popular in southern Europe during the late 19th century.
A traditional red clay court is not simply made of ordinary wet clay. It typically consists of multiple layers of crushed stone and other materials, with a thin surface layer of finely crushed brick or similar material.
Clay usually slows the ball after impact and creates a higher bounce, encouraging longer rallies.
The French Open has used a red clay surface since the international championship began at Roland Garros in 1928.
The US Open was played on grass from 1881 through 1974. In 1975, organizers switched to green clay at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York.
The experiment lasted just three years, and in 1978, the tournament moved to the new National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows and adopted hard courts.
The Australian Open was historically played on grass.
In 1988, the tournament moved to a new venue at Flinders Park, later renamed Melbourne Park, where it adopted a synthetic surface, which they have updated several times since.
Tennis balls have also evolved considerably. By the 19th century, manufacturers were producing hollow rubber balls for recreational games, replacing cloth, string, or leather balls.
These balls suited lawn tennis because they bounced reliably on grass and could withstand repeated impacts. Manufacturers eventually covered the rubber core with cloth to improve its durability and playing characteristics.
For much of tennis history, balls were white; however, the introduction of television created a problem.
Viewers found white balls difficult to follow, especially on certain court surfaces and on older television screens.
To address this, manufacturers experimented with alternative colors. In 1972, the International Tennis Federation formally permitted yellow balls. The new color proved more visible on television and eventually became standard at most tournaments.
Wimbledon, however, maintained its traditional white balls until 1986, when it finally adopted yellow.
Over the centuries, tennis has transformed from a medieval game played with bare hands to an aristocratic pastime and, eventually, a global professional sport.
Wooden rackets gave way to advanced composite materials, playing surfaces evolved from grass to clay and hard courts, and equipment improvements fundamentally changed how the game was played.
Yet despite these changes, the basic challenge has remained the same: hitting a ball over a net in a way an opponent cannot return.