The rules of sports such as baseball, basketball and football have changed significantly in recent decades, but the rules of tennis have barely changed since 1924. Baseball added the designated hitter, basketball added the 24-second clock and the 3-point shot, and football has made numerous changes that have made passing easier. The major innovation in the rules of tennis was a tiebreaker that reduced the length of matches but did not change the fundamental nature of the sport.
Ancient History
A form of tennis might have been played in ancient Greece, according to the International Tennis Federation, the organization that governs tennis worldwide. Back then, though, players hit a ball back and forth to each other with their hands. Hands were replaced by gloves, which were replaced by rackets by the time the sport known as "real tennis" became popular among the English and French royal families in the 13th century. Real tennis was played indoors and was closer to the modern sport of racquetball because the ball was hit off of walls. King Louis X of France died after playing real tennis in 1316. King Henry VIII of England built a real tennis court in the 1530s. European monks also regularly played real tennis.
The Inventor
Walter Wingfield, an English army major, invented the modern game of tennis in 1873. He called the sport sphairistike, which is Greek for "ball games." The game was played on lawns and featured players hitting rubber balls to each other over a net. As Wingfield explained the sport, he realized that lawn tennis was a better name for the sport than sphairistike. The game was so popular that the All England Croquet Club, which was in the Wimbledon section of London, decided to transform its croquet courts to lawn tennis courts in 1875. The first Wimbledon tournament was held in 1877. The U.S. Open and French Open began play in 1881 and 1891. Lawn tennis became an Olympic sport in 1896.
Rules
Lawn tennis became known more and more as tennis by the general public, although the name of the sport's governing body was the International Lawn Tennis Federation from 1913 to 1977. The ILTF was formed because tennis was played with different rules in different nations and officials thought the sport would grow more if it was more uniform. The ILTF formulated rules for tourneys throughout the world in 1924. The court was almost identical to the court patented by Wingfield: 78 feet long and 27 feet wide for singles matches and 78 by 36 feet for doubles matches. The scoring system and rules for play for each point also were similar to Wingfield's original ideas.
Changes
Tennis was so traditional that professionals weren't allowed in major tournaments until 1968. Rule changes also were infrequent. In 1961, the ILTF allowed servers to jump rather than require them to keep one foot on the ground. A few years later, tournaments began having a 13th-game tiebreaker when each player had won six games in a set. You had to win a set by at least two games before that. In 2006, tournaments began using electronic equipment to review umpires' line calls.
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