| Home | The History of the Game | The Rules of the Game | Major Tournaments | Current Male Stars in the Game | Current Female Stars in the Game | Legends in the Game | Tennis Related Links | Contact Me | Reference Page |
|---|
Tennis can be dated to two separate roots. The first was between 1859 and 1865, a man by the name Major Harry Gem and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that combined elements of rackets similar to the game of poona or badminton and the Basque ball game pelota, which they played on Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham, England. In 1872, along with two local doctors, they established the world's first tennis club in Leamington Spa.
The second root was December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designed a similar game, which he called sphairistike. Over time he renamed it as "sticky" to help amuse his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales. He based the game on the newer sport of outdoor tennis or real tennis. It has been said by tennis historians that Wingfield borrowed both the name and much of the French vocabulary of real tennis and applied them to his new game.