Tennis is a sport played by hitting a ball with a racket over a net into the court of the opponent.
It can be played one-on-one in singles competition or two-on-two in doubles competition.
Games similar to tennis have been around for hundreds of years, with the modern rules we know today being developed through the 1800s.
Rackets were used from the 16th century on.
The name tennis comes from the French word “tenez” which can be roughly translated to “hold” or “receive” in English.
The first tennis club was founded in Birmingham, England in 1872.
Lawn tennis quickly became popular, with the first Wimbledon championship taking place in 1877.
Metal racket frames were introduced in the late 1960s and slowly took over sales from wooden frames, which had previously been used.
Racket strings can be made from materials such as natural gut, polyester, kevlar and nylon.
Tennis balls are made of rubber covered in felt. They are typically yellow.
The four Grand Slam tournaments are the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.
The Australian and US Opens are played on hardcourt, the French Open is played on clay and Wimbledon is played on grass.
Tennis is played at the summer Olympic Games.
Electronic line-calling technology such as Hawk-Eye has been introduced in modern times to help improve decision making.
Tennis scoring is split into points, games, sets and matches.
Zero points is often referred to as “love”, while 40-40 is called “deuce”.
Tennis shots include forehand, backhand, drop shot, lob, volley, smash and serve.
The longest professional tennis match in history was played at Wimbledon in 2010 between Nicolas Mahout and John Isner. The two played for an extraordinary 11 hours and 5 minutes, with the 5th set being won by Isner, 70 to 68.
Famous tennis players include Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, Serena Williams, Steffi Graf, Margaret Court, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
