TENNIS

The Open Era

The year 1968 signaled the beginning of a revolution for those athletes who sought to make a living playing a sport known for its snobbish appeal and starchy white-flannel image. In that year tennis's "open era" began, and professionals could compete with amateurs for the sport's most coveted titles. Tennis was free to enter the new decade unabashedly commercial, casting off its "shamateur" label earned during the previous era in which the game's spokesmen hypocritically held up tennis as pure amateur sport while paying off players under the table.

The "In" Sport

During the 1970s the tennis revolution took to the streets, as tennis became the "in" sport in the United States and certainly the nation's growth sport. The country's middle class embraced tennis as theirs and spent millions on equipment and clothing. By the end of the decade it was estimated that more than a quarter of the country's population—and a nearly equal number of blacks and whites—played tennis at least four times a year; approximately 160,000 tennis courts had been built, with an extraordinary 5,000 more expected for each coming year. In 1978 the nation's premier tennis tournament, the U.S. Open, was moved from tony, exclusive Forest Hills to a public park, the recently built National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York. The change of venues ordered by United States Tennis Association (USTA) president and oil millionaire W. E. "Slew" Hester reflected what professional tennis in America had become: glitzy, fast-paced, big-money entertainment with mass appeal.

An American Revolution

In less than ten years the U.S. Open had moved from the patrician grass and clay surfaces of Forest Hills to hard courts—like the asphalt surface played on by the vast majority of the American public and the surface with which the rest of the world had come to associate tennis in the United States. While in other parts of the world the game continued to stand still—and Wimbledon, tennis's "lawn court championship," with its insistence on all-white shirts, shorts, and balls, remained the game's monument to tradition—tennis in the United States was a whirlwind of social and technological change. Television-friendly yellow balls replaced white ones; splashy pastels became a part of tennis fashion; metal and graphite replaced wood in rackets built to be stronger, larger, and more powerful; and tournament prize money for the winners jumped from the thousands to the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Renee Richards

During the decade the sport also rebelled against its socially conservative image. Professional women tennis players such as Billie Jean King were at the forefront of the women's lib movement as they worked to establish their own organizations and circuits—and fought for and won increased prize purses. Tennis also found itself embroiled in gender-bending experimentation and controversy when in 1976 the former Dr. Richard Raskind, an ophthalmologist and one-time captain of Yale's tennis team, entered the women's professional tennis circuit as Dr. Renee Richards, professional sports' first transsexual. Fearing that Richards might possess an unfair advantage in strength, endurance, and speed—fears that proved to be unfounded—many women players opposed her acceptance on the circuit. She was denied entrance to the 1976 U.S. Open. But she was admitted in 1977 after having successfully sued for entry in a highly publicized court case.

Circuits

In the first years of the so-called open era, competition among pro tennis organizations greatly contributed to the increase in the number of events and stunning growth in prize money. Implementation by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) of a points system, the Grand Prix, in 1970 created a method for establishing the world's best player, heightening the drama of tour events and thereby attracting new fans to the tournament gates. World Championship Tennis (WCT), a professional tour bankrolled by Texas oilman Lamar Hunt, had by 1970 successfully contracted many of the big-name players. The WCT announced for 1971 a "million-dollar" circuit leading to a nationally televised final played in Dallas and worth $50,000 to the winner. As a result more American stars such as Arthur Ashe hopped onto the WCT bandwagon, lured by the tour's promise of guaranteed big money. To keep players from defecting, the ITF began increasing the prize money at its events; players became the objects of hot bidding wars. But the high profile enjoyed by tennis, the steady increase in purses, and the phenomenal growth in number of fans and active participants in the sport during the 1970s were mostly due to television.

SHE HIT LIKE A MAN

Ophthalmologist Dr. Richard Raskin was a fine tennis player, but never quite good enough to be competitive on the men's pro tour. So he tried the women's division. In 1976, Raskin underwent a sex-change operation and assumed a new identity as Dr. Renee Richards. She was a larger than average player and more competitive than ever before.

When she tried to enter the U.S. Open, the other women protested, and the matter was taken to court. A federal judge ruled that Richards was a woman, but he could not give her a serve and volley. She lost in the first round.

Laver and Rosewall

Two televised matches in the early 1970s were largely responsible for the tennis boom in the United States—and for tennis's transformation into a major American spectator sport. In 1972 two of tennis's most dominant players, Aussies Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, met in Dallas for the WCT Championship finals. The match was played late on a Mother's Day afternoon and was televised nationally by CBS. As the two players traded sets and sweated out superbly played points, the match entered the dinner hour and the size of its television audience had swelled to nearly 52 million. The network preempted its regular evening shows in order to stick with the three-hour-and-forty-five-minute tennis marathon; and Americans and their families, many of whom had never so much as touched a tennis racket, sat glued to their televisions as the match entered the decisive, fifth-set tiebreaker. Rosewall, then in the last years of his brilliant career, upset the exhausted Laver, and the next day millions of Americans flocked to sporting-goods stores to purchase their first rackets.

Connors and Evert

King might have brought to the sport a women's libber's edge and sense of social import, but Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert, the decade's king and queen of American tennis, brought youth, brash attitude, and even a little romance. Engaged to be married, Connors and Evert each became Wimbledon singles champions in 1974. By the fall of that year the couple had broken up, but the love affair each had begun with fans furthered the American tennis boom—and sustained America's newly found prominence in a sport that had been dominated by the Aussies. Unlike his former fiancée, Connors was subject to temper tantrums on the court. His relations with fellow players was often chilly, and his boycott of the Davis Cup did not make him the darling of the U.S. tennis establishment. But his fiery brand of competition endeared him to many. He was a new breed of player whose two-handed backhand, metal racket, and bold and arrogant attitude constantly challenged tennis convention. Evert also was breaking new ground. In 1976, in only her third season on the tour, she became the first woman to earn $1 million in prize money. She simply dominated the tour, winning twelve of seventeen tournaments in 1976, including Wimbledon. Her stoic demeanor, intense look of concentration, and baseline style punctuated by her two-handed back-hand were emulated by high-school players. Her presence in women's tennis was responsible for the cultivation of future champions, most notably Tracy Austin. In 1977, at the age of fourteen, Austin reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals; in 1979 she beat Evert in straight sets to win the tournament.

Fortune

At decade's end many—such as Neil Amdur in his January 1979 World Tennis article, "Has the Tennis Boom Lost its Bloom?"—were wondering if American interest in the sport had peaked. Tournament attendance figures and the numbers of Americans taking up the sport continued to remain high, but recreational interest in sports such as racquetball seemed to be greater. Furthermore, many feared that the glut of tennis programming on television was overkill, as the same matches were often shown repeatedly. Connors and his American successor John McEnroe were also displaying an ugly side to competitive tennis, and temper tantrums were becoming more frequent at junior tennis events as well. Critics such as former great Jack Kramer warned that the sport was becoming too fast-paced, too rich, and consequently too obnoxious for even the most spectacle-loving American sports fans to stomach. At the end of decade Kramer was sounding a warning: "The game is headed for a great depression unless we solve the problems."

TENNIS

TENNIS, or more properly, lawn tennis, derives from the ancient game of court tennis. It was introduced in the United States shortly after Major Walter Clopton Wing-field demonstrated a game he called Sphairistike at a garden party in Nantclwyd, Wales, in December 1873. Formerly, some historians believed that Wingfield's game of Sphairistike, played on an hourglass-shaped court, was first brought to America by way of Bermuda. In 1875 Mary Ewing Outerbridge, an American, obtained a set of tennis equipment from British officers stationed there and her brother, A. Emilius Outerbridge, set up a court on the grounds of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club in New York City, the home of the first national tournament in September 1880. However, Outerbridge was preceded by Dr. James Dwight (often called the father of American lawn tennis) and F. R. Sears Jr., who played the first tennis match in the United States at Nahant, Massachusetts, in August 1874. The present scoring system of 15, 30, 40, games, and sets became official at the first Wimbledon (England) Championship in 1877. In 1881, the newly formed U.S. National Lawn Tennis Association (USNLTA) (the "National" was dropped in 1920, the "Lawn" in 1975) hosted the first official tennis championship in the United States at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. Richard D. Sears of Boston won the tournament, a feat he repeated annually through 1887.

From the Late Nineteenth to the Mid-Twentieth Century

Although tennis was initially confined mainly to the Northeast, by the 1880s and 1890s it was spreading throughout the United States, with tournaments and clubs organized in Cincinnati, Atlanta, New Orleans, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago, which was awarded the national doubles championships in 1893 as part of the World's Columbian Exposition there. The first Davis Cup matches, between the United States and Great Britain, were held at the Longwood Cricket Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1900. The cup donor, Dwight F. Davis, was a native of St. Louis but was at Harvard when he put up the cup, as were Malcolm Whitman and Holcombe Ward, also members of the first Davis Cup team. At that time, there were 44 tennis clubs in the United States; by 1908, there were 115. Like golf, tennis was most popular among America's economic and cultural elite. African Americans, Jews, and recent immigrants were usually excluded from the private clubs where tennis thrived.

From its introduction in the United States, tennis greatly appealed to both sexes, yet women were initially forbidden from playing in public tournaments. American clubs, like those in Europe, often assigned female players different venues and imposed confining styles of dress that limited their range of motion. Nevertheless, the United States has consistently produced some of the strongest women players in tennis history. The English-born Californian May Sutton was national champion in 1904, and in 1905 became the first American to win at Wimbledon. Hazel Hotchkiss' volleying style of attack allowed her to win forty-three national titles. She was also the donor of the Wightman Cup, sought annually since 1923 by British and American women's teams. Fifty years later, Billie Jean King, winner of four U.S. titles, would defeat the aging Bobby Riggs in what was called the Battle of the Sexes, a landmark event in the histories of both tennis and feminism.

In 1916 the USNLTA funded a series of programs and clinics to develop the skills of budding tennis players and promote the sport on a wider scale. As a result, the following decades saw numerous American players receive worldwide acclaim. Over the course of his career, William T. Tilden II won seven U.S. titles and three Wimbledon championships. Beginning in 1923, Helen Wills won the first of seven U.S. women's championships and ultimately triumphed at Wimbledon for a record eight times. Her match at Cannes in 1926 with Suzanne Leglen, six-time Wimbledon champion, was the most celebrated women's contest in the history of the game. A decade later Don Budge, the first player to complete the coveted "grand slam" by winning at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open, regained the Davis Cup for the United States in 1937 after

a period of French and English domination. Following World War II, the development of young tennis players continued under the auspices of the Tennis Educational Association. School physical education instructors were trained to teach tennis, while inner-city programs attempted to spread tennis to underprivileged youths. At the same time, the American Tennis Association became an outlet for aspiring African American players, including Althea Gibson, who in 1950 became the first African American to participate in the U.S. Open.

Radical Innovations

The late 1960s saw revolutionary changes in tennis, both in the United States and worldwide. Until that time, the sport's most prestigious competitions were open exclusively to amateurs. However, in 1968 the International Lawn Tennis Federation sanctioned open tournaments, permitting amateurs to compete against professionals. This shift had a profound impact on both professional and amateur tennis. New promoters and commercial sponsors came into the game and the schedule of tournaments was radically revised and enlarged. The prize money available for professional players increased dramatically, with tennis superstars such as Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, and Chris Evert earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by the mid-1970s. Top players no longer struggled to earn a living under the rules governing amateur status; as a result, the mean age of competitive players rose sharply, as many found they could earn more playing tennis than in other careers. Matches were also increasingly televised, especially after 1970, when the introduction of the "sudden death" tiebreaker made it possible to control the length of matches.

Improvements in racket technology further revolutionized the sport of tennis during the 1960s and 1970s. Steel, aluminum, and graphite rackets soon replaced the traditional wooden designs. Over the next two decades, wood and metal rackets gave way to stronger and lighter synthetic materials, while conventional head sizes disappeared in favor of intermediate and oversized racket heads, first introduced by Prince Manufacturing in 1976. Competitive techniques and styles of play were greatly affected by the new racket technology. The two-handed backhand, popularized during the 1970s, proved ideally suited to the new, larger racket heads and became a staple of the competitive game. The new racket technology was clearly responsible for a greater reliance on power in both men's and women's competitive tennis throughout the 1990s.

U.S. Dominance

During the last three decades of the twentieth century, the United States remained the single most important source of world-class players. Between 1974 and 1999, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Jim Courier, Pete Sampras, and Andre Agassi held the world's top men's ranking for a combined sixteen years. In the same period, Americans Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Monica Seles, and Lindsay Davenport held the top women's ranking in a total of ten years, with Martina Navratilova, a naturalized American, adding another seven. Since the late 1970s, when an estimated thirty-two to thirty-four million Americans played tennis, the popularity of the sport has been in decline. Although interest in tennis experienced a resurgence during the early 1990s, by the decade's end only 17.5 million Americans were actually playing the sport. Particularly underrepresented have been Americans of color, despite the success and influence of such players as Michael Chang and Venus and Serena Williams. Nevertheless, tennis remains a multibillion-dollar industry worldwide, with top tournaments frequently hosting record crowds.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Collins, Bud, and Zander Hollander, eds. Bud Collins' Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 1994.

Gillmeister, Heiner. Tennis: A Cultural History. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Parsons, John. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Tennis: The Definitive Illustrated Guide to World Tennis. London: Carlton Books, 1998.

Phillips, Caryl. The Right Set: A Tennis Anthology. New York: Vintage, 1999.

Sports Illustrated 2002 Sports Almanac. New York: Bishop Books, 2001.

AllisonDanzig

David W.Galenson

John M.Kinder

See alsoSports .

TENNIS

Rich Game

The sport of tennis was largely confined to the East Coast before 1900. It was seen as a private or club sport played by the wealthy. As the sport grew more popular, courts on public playgrounds were built with hard surfaces of cement, clay, or asphalt rather than the high-maintenance grass courts popular with the rich. In the 1910s, tennis was still generally viewed as a sport of the well-to-do and upwardly mobile. The ambitious middle class and nouveau riche were in the taking control of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA), the regional associations, and many of the tennis clubs.

Hotchkiss and Larned

In 1910 and 1911 Hazel V. Hotchkiss (later Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, the donor of the Wightman Cup) won the USLTA singles championship in the women's division for the second and third years in a row, and William A. Larned brought his total number of men's singles titles to seven (1901-1902 and 1907-1911). Hotchkiss's aggressive forecourt play added a new dimension to women's tennis. In 1910 she also won the women's and mixed doubles championships, losing only five games in all three finals. As Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, she would win her final singles title in 1919, defeating Molla Bjurstedt.

Triumph of McLoughlin

The year 1912 was the first in which the defending USLTA champion was required to play through the entire tournament instead of only having to play the tournament survivor in a challenge match. On 26 August 1912 the singles championships were won by Mary K. Browne and Maurice E. McLoughlin, the "California Comet." McLoughlin also won the championship the next year, and Browne won in 1913 and 1914. McLoughlin, who learned his sport on the public courts of San Francisco, played with dash and style. His power serves, dashes to the net, strategic volleying, and daring shots down the line were a refreshing change from the cautious backline game of serve and lob in which the forecourt was almost an unknown area of play. McLoughlin electrified tennis prior to World War I, transforming the game from the staid, restrained sport epitomized by Larned, an unspectacular player who relied on careful placement and steady service, rarely scoring an ace.

Exploits on the World Court

McLoughlin made his only European appearance in the 1913 Wimbledon, where he thrilled spectators with his cannonball serves. He completed the all-comers' singles and challenged Tony Wilding, the titleholder since 1910, for the crown. McLoughlin lost all three sets, but Wilding's reign ended in 1914 with his defeat by his Australian Davis Cup colleague, Norman Brookes. In 1914 McLoughlin defeated Brookes in what was considered one of the greatest sets in Davis Cup history. McLoughlin won 17-15 in the first set and then took the next two sets easily. McLoughlin and Hotchkis changed the style of tennis and helped popularize the sport among the middle class.

A Foreign Champion

At the Stockholm Olympics in 1912, Norwegian Molla Bjurstedt won the bronze medal for the women's singles on indoor courts. She became the first foreigner to win the women's USLTA singles championship in 1915, the first of four titles in a row. As Molla Mallory, she also won the American championship from 1920 to 1922 and in 1926.

Shifting Play

In 1915 the USLTA moved the men's championships from Newport, Rhode Island, to the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, in the New York borough of Queens, to attract a larger audience. The women's championships would be moved there from Philadelphia in 1921. In 1914, the last year at Newport, Richard Norris Williams II defeated McLoughlin to take the national men's singles championship. The Newport Casino, the home of America's most prestigious tennis event for thirty-four years, remained as a tourney site and became home to the Tennis Hall of Fame, but the exclusive era in tennis it represented was in the past,

McLoughlin's Successor

In September 1915 Californian William M. Johnston succeeded McLoughlin as the game's premier player. Like McLoughlin, he had an easy smile and a genial disposition that won him much loyal support. He played a power game but was more deliberate and balanced than McLoughlin. In 1915 and in 1919 he claimed the men's singles championships. A great doubles player as well, he won national championships in 1915, 1916, and 1920 when he teamed with Clarence Griffin. Johnston and McLoughlin were the first heroes of tennis and brought many fans to their dynamic sport.

International Lawn Tennis Federation,

Prior to 1913 the British Lawn Tennis Association (BLTA), with members from all over the world, was as close as tennis could come to a world governing body, Intended to replace the BLTA, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) was founded by Australia, Austria, Belgium, the British Isles, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, and Switzerland. The United States did not formally join the new organization but was informally represented by one of the British delegates at the ILTF's first meeting in Paris on 1 March 1913. The American absence resulted in the Davis Cup organization developing as a parallel but separate entity to the ILTF (the two bodies did not merge until 1978). The separate international organizations led to various "world championship" titles ("World Championship on Grass," "World Championships on Hard Court"), which were abolished after World War I when the United States became an ILTF member. The Davis Cup organization continued to boost tennis as an international sport. Prior to World War I, which temporarily halted the competition, nine nations, including the United States, participated.

The Game's Golden Future

In 1918, a tall, ungainly man from Philadelphia, William Tilden, made his third bid for the national singles title at the West Side Tennis Club, but he was beaten by Robert Lindley Murray, a left-hander with a big serve, who had also won the event the year before. In 1919 "Big Bill" Tilden stepped on to the court with "Little Bill" Johnston in the first of six meetings in the national finals that The New York Times billed as the battle for the title "William the Conqueror." Johnston won the first of the six clashes, but Tilden was the victor in all the rest. He was soon being called the greatest player of all time.

A French Champion

At the World's Hard Court Championships in Paris in 1914, Suzanne Lenglen, a promising young French girl from Picardy, won the women's doubles with a Californian partner, Elizabeth Ryan. Lenglen would go on to be considered by many the greatest player in the history of the women's game. Ryan's career also deserves mention. In 1914, she joined with Agatha Morton to win the women's doubles, the first of nineteen titles she gained at Wimbledon, a record that held until 1979 when Billie Jean King won her twentieth doubles match with Martina Navratilova.

Sources:

Bud Collins' Modern Encyclopedia of Tennis, edited by Bud Collins and Zander Hollander (Detroit: Gale Research, 1980,1994);

Douglas A. Noverr and Lawrence E. Ziewacz, The Games They Played: Sports in American History, 1865-1980 (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983);

Benjamin G. Rader, American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports, second edition (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1990);

Alan Trengove, The Story of the Davis Cup (London: Stanley Paul, 1985).

TENNIS

TENNIS AND THE COLD WAR

With Americans and Communists each attempting to exert influence on the Third World, the cold war was heating up. In an effort to win the trust and respect of the Third World governments, the State Department hit upon the idea of sending American athletes on goodwill tours abroad to display U.S. athletic excellence and spread the message of democracy. In 1955 the State Department found in Althea Gibson the perfect ambassador-athlete. Racial tensions in the United States had fed the Soviet propaganda machine, and U.S. government officials were anxious to show off to the world a successful black in order to prove that American democracy was moving toward racial equality. Although Gibson understood that the government aimed to exploit the color of her skin, she agreed to take part in the goodwill tour. She never regretted her decision: while in Asia she made friends with the white tennis players traveling with her, and her love for tennis was rekindled.

Source:

Tom Biracree, American Women of Achievement: Althea Gibson (New York: Chelsea House, 1989).

Its Stuffy Reputation

To many Americans at the beginning of the decade, tennis was still a sport for rich people and sissies. Most tennis courts were reserved for the country-club set, and the sport's professionals and competitive amateurs were well-to-do and white—as were their tennis outfits, if they were dressed in keeping with tennis etiquette. Many tennis players and tournament officials had fought hard to change the sport's image, and the professional circuit experimented with various tournament formats and venues—including holding night matches under arc lights at the 1951 national professional championship at Forest Hills, New York—in an attempt to draw fans. But few were interested, and with professional tennis still in its infancy the amateurs continued to attract the larger upper-class crowds.

A New Image for Tennis

By the end of the decade, however, the image of tennis had undergone a change as more and more Americans who could not afford a tennis court in their backyard or a country-club membership took interest in the sport and in its athletes. Women's tennis players—particularly Maureen Connolly and Althea Gibson, a black athlete from Harlem—were mostly responsible for the increasing amount of attention paid to the sport. The Davis Cup rivalry between the United States and Australia also sparked interest, as the team competition evoked nationalistic pride.

The Era of Little Mo

Dubbed "Little Mo" by the newspapers, Maureen Connolly, at the age of sixteen, burst on the tennis scene in 1951 and became the youngest player in twenty-eight years to win the U.S. National championship. She overpowered opponents with her hard-hitting groundstrokes and in so doing brought women's tennis to a new level of skill. Her youth, vivaciousness, and extraordinary athleticism also attracted new fans to the game. Grandstands were filled beyond capacity by many who had never picked up a tennis racket to catch a glimpse of Little Mo dominating the sport in unprecedented fashion. She continued to add major championships to her impressive list of wins and in 1953 achieved tennis's ultimate feat by winning all four major tournaments (the Australian, French, British, and U.S. championships) in a single year. A horse-riding accident in 1954 forced her early retirement, but her brash and hard swinging style of play had forever changed the sport.

Althea Ignites Interest

In 1957 Althea Gibson, whose style of play sportswriters described as "mannish," rose to the top rank of women's tennis. In that year she received the trophy from Queen Elizabeth after winning England's grass court title at Wimbledon, the first black to do so. Upon her return to New York she was greeted with a ticker-tape parade and later that year went on to win the U.S. championship trophy, presented to her by Vice-president Richard M. Nixon. She repeated her winning performances at the 1958 British and American championships and received the Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Frederick C. Miller trophies as Woman Athlete of the Year. Her rise from the streets of Harlem, where she had learned to play paddle tennis, to the top ranks of the previously "white only" world of tennis was an extraordinary one. She became a symbol to young black athletes who sought to achieve the same kind of success in white-dominated athletics, and as a result many became interested in the urban tennis programs sponsored by the various city-park services.

Davis Cup Play and Nationalistic Enthusiasm

There was considerable interest in Davis Cup play, in which national teams competed, as the Americans and Australians fought on the court to determine who had the best tennis players in the world. Much like the Brooklyn Dodgers of baseball, however, the American team year after year would reach the final round of play only to be soundly thrashed. In men's tennis during the 1950s no country could match Australia's talent. Furthermore, tennis enjoyed immense popularity down under, and thousand of rabid Australian tennis fans would turn out to watch their players run the Americans all over the court. In 1954 the Americans, headed by perennial Davis Cup stars Tony Trabert and Victor Seixas, finally ended Australia's four years of dominance and took the cup back with them to the United States. The Americans lost the cup eight months later, but the entire nation had received a taste of victory in finally having beaten the Aussies. The U.S. Davis Cup victory made for a new kind of tennis fan: at the 1958 U.S. doubles championship partisan fans lustily booed Aussie players and applauded their mistakes—a serious breach of tennis-fan protocol. For better or worse, the era of modern tennis had been ushered in.

Sources:

Allison Danzig and Peter Sehwed, eds., The Fireside Book of Tennis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972);

John Feinstein, Hard Courts (New York: Villard Books, 1991).

TENNIS

Tilden and Wills

During the 1920s Bill Tilden and Helen Wills largely dominated tennis in America and abroad. The pair provided models of athleticism and mastery that appealed to their fellow citizens who were flocking to private and public courts in unprecedented numbers. Alongside these two tennis giants of the decade were other talented players who won major championships and who provided Tilden and Wills with the competition they required to develop their own enormous talents. Moreover, these figures were intimately involved in the explosion of interest in team play that occurred in the 1920s, whether in the women's Wightman Cup competition or the men's Davis Cup matches.

Wightman and Mallory

Among the best of the U.S. women players were Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman and Molla Bjurdstedt Mallory. Wightman, a fierce competitor, had won four U.S. Championships between 1909 and 1919 and in the course of her long career took more than sixty titles (she also claimed in 1930 the women's squash rackets championship and won second place in a mixed-doubles badminton championship in 1936 when she was fifty). Past her prime as a player when Helen Wills emerged, she still provided able competition to the younger woman. Mallory, a Norwegian-born American, was a stronger rival, though she, too, had already seen her best tennis years when Wills arrived. Mallory had been the most powerful American woman player between 1915 and 1922. She had won seven U.S. Championships and would take another in 1926, a year in which Wills did not compete. Mallory had never won Wimbledon, though in 1922 she had met Suzanne Lenglen in the finals. She would have beaten Lenglen in the first round of the U.S. Championships in August 1921, but Lenglen-—ill and unnerved by Mallory's aggressive play and the goading of Mallory's friend Bill Tilden—defaulted in the match after the first set. Both Mallory and Wightman were still active players and fine opponents for Wills.

WILLIAM TATEM TILDEN II'S RECORD

U. S. Singles—1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1929.

U.S. Doubles—1918, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1927.

U.S. Mixed Doubles—1913, 1914, 1922, 1923.

U.S. Clay Court Singles—1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927.

U.S. Indoor Singles—1920

U.S. Indoor Doubles—1919, 1920, 1926, 1929.

Wimbledon Singles—1920, 1921, 1930.

Wimbledon Doubles—1927.

World Hard Court Singles (Paris)—1921.

Wightman Cup

Furthermore, the two women were very much part of the women's team competition that became popular during the decade. In 1923 Wightman had established the Wightman Cup, which was originally intended to promote friendly competition between American women's tennis teams and women's tennis teams from a variety of European countries. In fact, because most European countries still felt economically unable to support teams because of their war debts, only England and the United States competed. The first American team in 1923 was composed of Wightman, Mallory, Wills, and Eleanor Goss; their opponents on the British team were Kathleen "Kitty" McKane (who would defeat Wills in the 1924 Wimbledon final), Mrs, Alfred E. Beamish, Mrs. R. C. Clayton, and Mrs, B. C. Covell. The Wightman Cup format featured five singles matches and two doubles, and in the first year of competition the Americans won 7-0. The next year the British won 6-1, and in the eight years of Wightman Cup play during the 1920s, the two teams exactly split the contests, which always sparked considerable public interest.

Johnston, Williams, and Richards

Among the fine American male tennis players who were Tilden's contemporaries and competitors was "Little Bill" Johnston, who won Wimbledon in 1923, had taken the U.S. Championship in 1915 and 1919, and had lost to Tilden in five other U.S. finals. The wealthy, cultured Richard Norris "Dick" Williams, who had won the U.S. Championship in 1914 and 1916, was known for his apparently effortless execution and for his superb doubles play. Vincent Richards, a rising young star who would shock the tennis world by turning professional in 1926, had a strong all-around game and, like Williams, with whom he often paired, was an impressive doubles player. In 1925 Tilden, Johnston, Richards, and Williams were ranked 1, 2, 3, and 5 in the world.

Davis Cup

The Davis Cup competition, begun in 1900, was a source of interest for Americans during the 1920s, because their country was able to field a superb team in the international competition and because this team dominated Davis Cup play from 1920 through 1926, taking all of the events during the period by 5-0 or 4-1 scores. In 1927, however, the Americans met a French team composed of rising young stars called the Four Musketeers—René Lacoste, Henri Cochet, Jean Borotra, and Jacques Brugnon—and lost 3-2, including one loss by Tilden himself. During the final two years of the decade Americans again played against France in the Davis Cup finals, but both Williams and Johnston had retired from competition, Richards was on the professional circuit, and Tilden was aging. The matches were often exciting and still stirred considerable interest in the American public, but the great days of American tennis in the 1920s were over.

Sources:

Parke Cummings, American Tennis: The Story of a Game and Its People (Boston: Little, Brown, 1957);

Frank Deford, Big Bill Tilden: The Triumphs and the Tragedy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976);

Lance Tingay, Tennis: A Pictorial History (New York: Putnam, 1973).

TENNIS

After Tilden

In the 1920s both Bill Tilden and the French tennis star Suzanne Lenglen were largely responsible for the upsurge in popularity of lawn tennis in America and Europe in the following decade. It became increasingly clear, also, in the 1930s that this resurgence of interest and the financial benefits (in the form of "expenses") that accompanied it made it more and more difficult to distinguish between pure amateurs and professional players, who were mainly supposed to be involved in coaching. There were many disputes and irregularities regarding the issue, and by 1939 three other American Wimbledon champions (Ellsworth Vines, Don Budge, and Bobby Riggs) followed Tilden's lead and turned pro after winning a big event—a trend that would be almost routine after the war.

Tennis for Everyone

Tennis was still not a sport for the everyman in the 1930s. The Italian Championships, won first by Tilden, began in 1930, and two Swedish indoor tennis events begun in 1936 reflected the game's growing international and often aristocratic flavor. Still, the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) took steps to make tennis a lifetime sport for all types of people and particularly to encourage young people to play. A Junior Davis Cup program for boys and a Junior Wightman Cup program for girls were instituted in 1935 and 1938 respectively, African Americans, however, were not welcome in USLTA and continued to play in their separate American Tennis Association (ATA).

The State of the Game

The U.S., British, Australian, and French tournaments were generally recognized now as the major tennis events in world play. Britain's Fred Perry had won them all between 1933 and 1935, but Donald Budge of the United States captured all four titles (the Grand Slam) in a single year—1938—the most outstanding athletic accomplishment of that year, especially considering that tennis had become a faster sport when the standard pressure of the ball was increased. Women's tennis changed in several ways: plunging necklines, Bermuda shorts, and culottes appeared on the courts; women now almost regularly served overhead; and Alice Marble introduced the power-serve volley and wore her shorts even shorter than her opponents.

SPORTS FADS OF THE 1930s

Bagatelle:about 1933. A billiardlike game. Players got ten shots for a nickel, attempting to hit a mark or drop a ball in a hole across a long table.

Minature Golf: The first course was built in Chattanooga by Garnett Carter in 1927, but the game did not became a craze until 1930 and 1931, after which it dropped quickly in popularity. At its height there were an estimated 20 million players on 25,000 courses. What started out as an upper-class phenomenon later became a middle-class pas-time.

Snow Bat: about 1933. It was a complicated baseball variant played with snowballs thrown at a furious pace by a pitcher assisted by snowball makers. Hitter swung a racket-type bat, while a snow catcher held a protective shield. A designated runner could keep circling the bases for the batter until the batter finally missed.

Source:

Frank W. Hoffman and William G. Brady, Sports and Recreation Fads (New York: Harrington Press, 1991).

1939-SPORTS COMES TO TELEVISION

On 3 June 1931 television pictures of the English Derby were broadcast briefly over the BBC by the Baird Television Company, and the 1936 Olympic Games from Berlin reached several available television locales; but 1939 was the signal year for televised sports.

17 May—first college baseball game (Princeton vs. Columbia, called by Bill Stern)

1 June—first heavyweight boxing match (Lou Nova vs. Max Baer).

9 August—first tennis match (Eastern Grass Court Championships).

26 August—first Major League Baseball game (doubleheader, Dodgers vs. Reds, called by Red Barber).

30 September—first college football game (Fordham vs. Waynesburg.)

Budge and Moody Again

Tennis was one of the few sports not to experience a dramatic drop in attendance during the Depression. Record numbers came to Forest Hills and Madison Square Garden to see professional matches featuring Tilden, Vines Perry, and Budge, who beat both Vines and Perry in his debut. After dominating American women's tennis from the early 1920s to the early 1930s, Helen Wills Moody made a remarkable comeback at Wimbledon in 1935. Budge was easily the most exciting male tennis star of the era. A fast and overwhelming baseline player, Budge had a devastating backhand. His five-set match against Baron Gottfried von Cramm at Wimbledon in 1937 was tennis at its apex. Von Cramm was unable to hold a 4-1 lead in the final set, and Budge took him to 6-6. He then broke von Cramm's serve and went on to win his seventh match point with a wicked ground shot on von Cramm's return of service. As a result of that victory, the United States went on to win its first Davis Cup in ten years, with Budge shining once more. Australia, though, would claim the cup in 1939. That same year Jimmy McDaniel won the first of his four ATA titles.

Sources:

Arthur Ashe, A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete (New York: Warner, 1988);

Allison Danzig and Peter Schwed, eds., The Fireside Book of Tennis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972);

Max Robinson and Jack Kramer, eds., The Encyclopedia of Tennis: 100 Years of Great Players and Events (New York: Viking, 1974).

TENNIS

USLTA versus PLTA

There was an uneasy alliance between amateurs and professionals in American tennis during the 1940s. The conservative, upper-class traditions of the sport were protected by the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA), a member of the International Lawn Tennis Association (ILTA), which provided standardized rules throughout the world and declared itself an organization of amateurs only. Professional tennis coaches began to appear in the 1920s, and they had formed an alliance called the Professional Lawn Tennis Association (PLTA) to declare their adherence to USLTA standards, even though they charged to teach tennis. In 1928 the Palm Beach Tennis Club staged the first exhibition by professional tennis players, many of whom were PLTA members, but the event did not stimulate much enthusiasm. By the 1940s there were touring professionals who played for small audiences—the Bill Tilden tour was the most successful—and the USLTA had modified its charter to allow one annual open tournament a year in which amateurs and professionals played each other. For the most part, though, the tennis purists paid only passing interest to those who would stoop to accept pay for their games, despite the credibility lent to the professional circuit when popular champions Fred Perry of Great Britain and Ellsworth Vines of the United States joined the Bill Tilden tour in 1937 and grossed $412,181 for sixty-one matches.

Jack Kramer

A flashy and personable player named Jack Kramer changed fans' attitudes toward professional tennis. He won the United States Outdoor Championship in 1946 and 1947 and Wimbledon singles and doubles titles in 1947, all amateur championships. A promoter named Jack Harris offered him a $50,000-per-year guarantee for two years against 35 percent of the gate receipts to turn pro, and Kramer snapped at the opportunity. In 1948 he played a series of eighty-nine matches in the United States and abroad with Bobby Riggs, who had been Wimbledon champion in 1939, United States out-door champion in 1939 and 1941, and United States professional champion in 1946 and 1947. The tour revived professional tennis, which had been in a steady decline from its high point in 1937 until 1942, when it was suspended for the war. Gross revenues were $383,000, considered a huge success. The tour traveled five thousand miles a month and carried its own equipment to set up courts. Kramer won the pro championship in 1948 and lost to Riggs in 1949.

Gorgeous Gussie

Amateur tennis made the headlines when Augusta Moran, better known as Gorgeous Gussie, posed a threat at Wimbledon after winning the United States Indoor Championship in 1949. She was the fourth-ranked player in the world, and number one in the hearts of the sports press for her good looks and vivacious spirit. When she showed up on center court at staid Wimbledon with lace panties under her designer tennis dress, she was front-page news in London for five days straight. When she lost to a diminutive Chinese player in the third round, John M. Ross, editor of American Lawn Tennis Magazine, observed in Colliers with barely restrained excitement that "her opponent's height was somewhat less than twice the circumference of the most expressive part of Gussie's sweater." She took her sex appeal to the pros in 1950, joining Riggs, Kramer, and an international array of tennis stars on the Harris tour.

Sources:

"The Big Pro Show," Newsweek, 30 (29 December 1947): 58;

Official Encyclopedia of Tennis (New York: Harper & Row, 1972);

John M. Ross, "Good Gussy," Collier's, 124 (3 September 1949): 30, 71-72;

"Villain's Victory," Time, 51 (5 January 1948), 47.

Tennis

Court Domination

Pete Sampras practically owned Wimbledon during the 1990s. Sampras not only won six Wimbledon trophies (1993-1995, 1997-1999), he also won the Australian Open (1994, 1997) and U.S. Open (1990, 1993, 1995, 1996). Sports Illustrated called him the best male tennis player of the century, edging out Bill Tilden, whose glory years were in the 1920s. At the end of the decade Sampras had won sixty-one career titles and spent more weeks as the top-ranked player than anyone in history. The fortunes of other Americans playing professional tennis were much more erratic.

Men's Tennis

In the men's tournaments, Andre Agassi was also up and down, winning five Grand Slam events—Wimbledon (1992), the U.S. Open (1994, 1999), the Australian Open (1995), and the French Open (1999). Other American men who had outstanding decades included Jim Courier and Michael Chang. Courier won twice in Australia (1992 and 1993) and twice in France (1991 and 1992). Chang is one of only three American men to earn more than $15 million in career winnings, along with Sampras (S35 million) and Agassi ($15 million). In the Davis Cup, the annual international team tennis competition, the U.S. men fared well during the decade, winning three times (1990, 1992, 1995) and placing second twice (1991, 1997).

Women's Tennis

Women's professional tennis provided at least as much entertainment in the form of competitive balance and glamour as the men's. Monica Seles, Lindsay Davenport, and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, all took center stage. Davenport won the titles in the 1996 Olympics, U.S. Open (1998), and Wimbledon (1999). Seles won nine Grand Slam events but had to endure time off the court at the peak of her career after being stabbed by a Steffi Graf fan in 1993. Having already won the Australian Open (1991-1993), the French Open (1990-1992), and the U.S. Open (1991-1992), Seles spent a significant portion of the next three years recovering. Remarkably, she returned to the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour with a win at the Canadian Open (1995) and reclaimed the title in Australia (1996). Venus and Serena Williams were rising stars in popularity and ability, with Serena claiming her first U.S. Open title in 1999. Also at the conclusion of the decade, Martina Navratilova was recognized as possibly being the greatest tennis player, male or female, ever; ESPN ranked her the nineteenth best athlete in its Top 100 Athletes of the [Twentieth] Century.

Sources:

CNNSI.com, Internet website.

ESPN.go.com, Internet website.

The Sports Illustrated 1999 Sports Almanac (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998).

tennis Racket and ball game played either by two (singles) or four (doubles) players. It is sometimes known as lawn tennis, despite being played on concrete, clay, shale, and wood as well as grass. The game is played on a court, 23.8m (78ft) by 8.2m (27ft) for singles. For doubles play, the court widens to 11m (36ft). A net, 0.9m (3ft) high at the centre, bisects the court. On each side of the net there are two service areas marked by rectangular lines. The ball is put into play by the server, who is allowed two attempts to hit it into the opposite service court. One player serves for a complete game. If the opponent returns the ball in court, play continues until one player fails to hit the ball, hits it into the net, or hits it outside the confines of the court; his opponent then wins the point. A minimum of four points are required to win a game, which must be won by two clear points. A minimum of six games must be won to win a set, which must be won by either two clear games or by winning the tie-break game, which is played at six games all. Modern tennis evolved from real tennis in England in the 1860s.

ten·nis / ˈtenis/ • n. a game in which two or four players strike a ball with rackets over a net stretched across a court. The usual form (originally called lawn tennis) is played with a felt-covered hollow rubber ball on a grass, clay, or artificial surface.See also court tennis.

Tennis or Tinnis , medieval city of Egypt, on an island in Lake Manzala, southwest of modern Port Said. Tennis, founded when Tanis was abandoned, was a port and center of commerce of some importance. It was particularly notable for its fine textiles (much prized throughout the Muslim world).

tennis game played indoors or outdoors by two players (singles) or four players (doubles) on a level court.

Rules and Equipment

Lawn tennis was originally played on grass courts, but most major events are now played on courts of hard, composite materials; exceptions include Wimbledon, played on grass, and the French Open, played on clay. In singles play the court measures 78 ft by 27 ft (23.8 m by 8.2 m). The court is divided in half by a net 3 ft (91 cm) high in the middle and 3.5 ft (1.1 m) high at the end posts. On either side of the net lie the forecourts, each of which contains two adjacent service courts measuring 21 ft by 13.5 ft (6.4 m by 4.1 m) each. A backcourt 18 ft (5.5 m) long adjoins each forecourt. A base line that runs parallel to the net terminates the playing court. In doubles play, 4 1/2 -foot-wide (1.4-m) alleys flanking either side of the court perpendicular to the net are also in play.

Play is directed toward hitting the inflated rubber, felt-covered, unstitched ball (slightly smaller than a baseball) with a racket—oval headed, originally 27 in. (68.58 cm) long but now usually longer, the hitting surface strung with resilient fiber—into the opponent's court so that it may not be returned. One player serves an entire game and is given two service tries each time the ball is put in play. The ball is served diagonally from behind the base line so that it bounces beyond the net, in the opposite service court. A let ball (one that caroms off the top of the net into the proper service court) does not count as a fault (bad serve). Service alternates after points, between the right- and left-hand courts. After the first game and all odd-numbered games, the players change ends of the court.

Once the serve puts the ball in play, players may hit it into any part of the opponent's court until a point is scored. Rallies won by either player score points. Scoring progresses from love (zero) to 15 (first point), to 30, then 40. The point scored after 40 wins the game, but when the game goes to deuce (tied at 40–40) a player must go two points ahead to win it. The first player to win six games takes the set, provided the opposing player has won no more than four games. Traditionally, after the players were tied at five games all, the first to go two games ahead won the set. In 1970, however, the United States Lawn Tennis Association (founded 1881 and now simply the United States Tennis Association), the sport's national governing body, initiated an abbreviated method, called the tie-breaker, for deciding deadlocked sets. In a tie-breaker, the first player to win seven points wins the set, provided the opponent trails by at least two points. Only in the deciding set of major championship matches outside the United States is the original two-game margin of victory retained. The best two out of three sets wins most professional matches; the best three out of five sets wins a late-round match in men's play in major championships. An umpire calls play, and in important matches a net judge, foot-fault judges, and linesmen often assist.

History

Origins

Unlike most other sports, lawn tennis has precise origins. An Englishman, Major Walter C. Wingfield, invented lawn tennis (1873) and first played it at a garden party in Wales. Called "Sphairistiké" [Gr.,=ball playing] by its inventor, the early game was played on an hourglass-shaped court, widest at the baselines and narrowest at the net. In creating the new sport, Wingfield borrowed heavily from the older games of court tennis and squash racquets and probably even from the Indian game of badminton .

Court tennis is also known as royal tennis. It originated in France during the Middle Ages and became a favorite of British royalty, including Henry VIII. The progression from court tennis, which used an unresilient sheepskin ball filled with sawdust, sand, or wool, to lawn tennis depended upon invention of a ball that would bounce.

Lawn tennis caught on quickly in Great Britain, and soon the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon held the first world tennis championship (1877). Restricted to male players, that event became the famous Wimbledon Tournament for the British National Championship, still the most prestigious event in tennis. In 1884 Wimbledon inaugurated a women's championship. Soon the game became popular in many parts of the British Empire, especially in Australia.

Tennis spread to the United States by way of Bermuda. While vacationing there, Mary Ewing Outerbridge of New York was introduced (1874) to the game by a friend of Wingfield. She returned to the United States with a net, balls, and rackets, and with the help of her brother, set up a tennis court in Staten Island, N.Y. The first National Championship, for men only, was held (1881) at Newport, R.I. A women's championship was begun six years later, and in 1915 the National Championship moved to Forest Hills, N.Y. Since 1978 what is now the United States Tennis Association Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y., has hosted the event (known as the U.S. Open). The Tennis Hall of Fame is in Newport, R.I.

The Professionalization of Tournament Tennis

In 1900 the international team competition known as the Davis Cup tournament began. Along with the Wightman Cup (begun 1923), an annual tournament between British and American women's teams, the Davis Cup helped to focus international attention on tennis. In 1963, a women's Davis Cup equivalent, the Federation Cup, usurped the prestige of the Wightman Cup. In the first decades of the 1900s tennis was primarily a sport of the country club set. The widespread construction of courts on school and community playgrounds in the 1930s (many built by the federal government's New Deal agencies) helped to make tennis more accessible to the public.

When the professional game showed itself to be profitable in the late 1920s, a number of amateur players joined the tour. One of the first to do so was William Tilden , perhaps the greatest player in the history of tennis. Before Tilden turned pro (1931), he won a total of seven United States singles championships and three Wimbledon championships.

The continued defection of amateur players into the professional ranks was one of the factors that led amateur tennis's world governing body, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF, founded 1913), to open its tournaments to both professionals and amateurs in 1968. For many years the major ILTF-sponsored tournaments, including Wimbledon and the U.S. National Championship, had been restricted to amateurs. With the advent of open tennis, however, the great professionals were allowed to compete for the major titles. Eventually, the Davis Cup also allowed professionals.

The four major annual tournaments in international tennis are Wimbledon, the Australian Open, the French Open, and the U.S. Open. Winning all four in the same year is called a grand slam. Only Don Budge (1938), Rod Laver (1962, 1969), Maureen Connolly (1953), Margaret Court (1970), and Steffi Graf (1988) have won grand slams. In 1971, the establishment of a women-only professional tour gave female pros financial parity with their male counterparts. In the same year Billie Jean King became the first woman athlete in any sport to earn more than $100,000 in one year. In the 1970s a team league, World Team Tennis, operated for several years, but was unsuccessful. The professional tour remains the most visible focus for the sport, its major tournaments surpassing in prestige even competition in the Olympics, which added tennis in 1988.

Bibliography

See W. T. Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis (1974); R. Schikel, The World of Tennis (1975); V. Braden and B. Bruns, Vic Braden's Tennis for the Future (1977).

tennis ball game played with rackets in a walled court XIV; short for lawn t., XIX. ME. tenetz, tene(y)s, tenyse, usu. taken to be — (O)F. tenez, imper. of tenir hold, take, presumably the server's call to his opponent.

tennis. See lawn tennis.

tennis See lawn tennis.

tennis •anise, Janice •Daphnis • Agnes •harness, Kiwanis •Dennis, Ennis, Glenys, menace, tennis, Venice •feyness, gayness, greyness (US grayness) •finis, penis •Glynis, Innes, pinnace •Widnes • bigness • lychnis • illness •dimness • hipness •fitness, witness •Erinys • iciness •dryness, flyness, shyness, slyness, wryness •cornice •Adonis, Clones, Issigonis •coyness •Eunice, Tunis •Bernice, furnace •Thespis • precipice • coppice • hospice •auspice • Serapis