Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket strung with a cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. If a player is unable to return the ball successfully, the opponent scores a point.
Playable at all levels of society and at all ages, tennis can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including wheelchair users. The original forms of tennis developed in France during the late Middle Ages. The modern form of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis. It had close connections to various field (lawn) games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport today called real tennis.
The rules of modern tennis have changed little since the 1890s. Two exceptions are that until 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point-challenge system, which allows a player to contest the line call of a point, a system known as Hawk-Eye. (Full article...)
The ITF's governance responsibilities include maintaining and enforcing the rules of tennis, regulating international team competitions, promoting the game, and preserving the sport's integrity via anti-doping and anti-corruption programs. The ITF partners with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to govern professional tennis. (Full article...)
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Australian chair umpire Scott Ray positions himself prior to a match at Wimbledon In tennis, an official is a person who ensures that a match or tournament is conducted according to the International Tennis Federation Rules of Tennis and other competition regulations.
At the highest levels of the sport, a team of up to eleven officials may be on court at any given time. These officials are broken up into categories based on their responsibility during the match. Contrastingly, many tennis matches are conducted with no officials present directly on court. (Full article...)
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World number 1 ranked female tennis players is a year-by-year listing of the female tennis players who were ranked as world No. 1 by various contemporary and modern sources.
Novak Djokovic has won a record 40 Masters titles in singles. He is also the only singles player to complete the career Golden Masters, and has accomplished the feat twice. The ATP 1000 events, also known as ATP Masters 1000 tournaments, are an annual series of nine tennis tournaments featuring the top-ranked players on the ATP Tour since its inception in 1990. The ATP 1000 tournaments, sitting below the Grand Slam tournaments and the year-end championships, make up the most coveted trophies on the annual ATP Tour calendar. In addition to the quadrennial Summer Olympics, they are collectively known as the 'Big Titles'.
Tennis for Two on a DuMont Lab Oscilloscope Type 304-A
Tennis for Two (also known as Computer Tennis) is a sports video game that simulates a game of tennis, and was one of the first games developed in the early history of video games. American physicist William Higinbotham designed the game in 1958 for display at the Brookhaven National Laboratory's annual public exhibition after learning that the government research institution's Donner Model 30 analog computer could simulate trajectories with wind resistance. He designed the game within a few hours, after which he and technician Robert V. Dvorak built it over a period of three weeks. The game was displayed on an oscilloscope and played with two custom aluminum controllers. Its visuals show a representation of a tennis court viewed from the side, and players adjust the angle of their shots with a knob on their controller and try to hit the ball over the net by pressing a button.
The game was very popular during the three-day exhibition, with players lining up to see the game, especially high school students. It was shown again the following year with a larger oscilloscope screen and a more complicated design that could simulate different gravity levels. It was then dismantled and largely forgotten until the late 1970s when Higinbotham testified in court about the game during lawsuits between Magnavox and Ralph H. Baer over video game patents. Since then, it has been celebrated as one of the earliest video games, and Brookhaven has made recreations of the original device. Under some definitions Tennis for Two is considered the first video game, as while it did not include any technological innovations over prior games, it was the first computer game to be created purely as an entertainment product rather than for academic research or commercial technology promotion. (Full article...)
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The Australian Open is an annual tennis tournament created in 1905 and (since 1988) played on outdoor hardcourts at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The Australian Open is played over a two-week period beginning in mid-January and has been chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tournaments each year since 1987. The event was not held from 1916 to 1918 because of World War I, from 1941 to 1945 because of World War II and in 1986. The timing of the Australian Open has changed several times. In 1977, the date of the final moved from January to December, which resulted in having two Australian Opens in 1977; there was a January edition and a December edition that year. The originally planned December 1986 edition was moved forward to January 1987, resulting in no Australian Open in 1986. The Australian Open was an Open Era event for the first time in 1969. One year previously in 1968 the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open were Open Era events for the first time. (Full article...)
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The Djokovic–Murray rivalry was a tennis rivalry between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. They met 36 times, and Djokovic leads 25–11 overall and 11–8 in finals. Ten of their encounters were played in majors, with Djokovic leading 8–2. Djokovic and Murray are one of two male pairs to have contested the finals of each of the four majors (Djokovic–Nadal is the other pair).
Djokovic leads on hard courts 20–8 and 5–1 on clay, while Murray won their two matches played on grass. The rivalry began highly competitive and remained so for many years. However, after Murray won the 2013 Wimbledon Championships over Djokovic in the final, Djokovic took a commanding lead, winning 14 of their last 17 encounters. (Full article...)
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The Billie Jean King Cup (or the BJK Cup) is the premier international team competition in women's tennis, launched as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The name was changed to the Fed Cup in 1995, and changed again in September 2020 in honor of former World No. 1Billie Jean King. The Billie Jean King Cup is the world's largest annual women's international team sports competition in terms of the number of nations that compete. The current chair is Katrina Adams.
The men's equivalent of the Billie Jean King Cup is the Davis Cup, and the Czech Republic, Australia, Russia, Italy and the United States are the only countries to have won both Cups in the same year. (Full article...)
Held during the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament saw changes in format and personnel compared to previous editions. As a result, withdrawals and opt-outs became a theme of the competition. Defending men's singles champion and world No. 2 Rafael Nadal and No. 9 Gaël Monfils withdrew due to COVID-19 safety concerns, while No. 4 Roger Federer, No. 12 Fabio Fognini, and No. 15 Stan Wawrinka opted out for other reasons. On the women's side, defending singles champion and world No. 6 Bianca Andreescu did not return due to safety concerns, nor did No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, No. 2 Simona Halep, or No. 5 Elina Svitolina, among others. Further, the qualifying rounds of the tournament, in addition to the mixed doubles and juniors draws, were not held due to the pandemic. (Full article...)
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual team sporting competition. It is described by the organisers as the "World Cup of Tennis" and the winners are referred to as the world champions. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Great Britain and the United States. By 2023 155 nations entered teams into the competition.
The most successful country over the history of the competition is the United States (winning 32 titles and finishing as runners-up 29 times). The most recent champions are Italy, who beat Netherlands to win their third title (and second consecutive one) in 2024. (Full article...)
The Graf–Sabatini rivalry was a tennis rivalry between Steffi Graf and Gabriela Sabatini, who played each other on 40 occasions between 1985 and 1995. Graf was the world No. 1, and Sabatini reached a career high of No. 3. Both are Major champions, Graf winning 22 titles, and Sabatini won her only major title at the 1990 US Open over Graf. They also teamed in doubles, reaching three French Open finals and winning the 1988 Wimbledon crown.
In Grand Slams, they met 12 times, three of them in finals. Graf leads 11–1. In 1988, Graf beat Sabatini in the semifinals of the French Open, the US Open final, and the Olympic final to complete the calendar-year Golden Slam. In the 1991 Wimbledon final. Sabatini was two points away from capturing the singles title, but Graf took the match 8–6 in the deciding set. (Full article...)
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Novak Djokovic
The tennis rivalry between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal was the most prolific in men's tennis in the Open Era. It is widely considered by players, coaches, and pundits as among the greatest rivalries in the history of the sport. The pair contested at least one professional match every year from 2006 to 2022, and in 2024. Nadal and Djokovic are statistically two of the most successful male players in the history of the sport.
They faced each other 60 times, including in all four major finals, with Djokovic leading 31–29 overall. Djokovic leads 15–13 in finals of all levels, while Nadal leads 11–7 at the majors, including 5–4 in major finals. Nadal leads 8–2 at the French Open and 2–1 at the US Open, while Djokovic leads 2–1 at Wimbledon and 2–0 at the Australian Open. Djokovic is the only player to have beaten Nadal in all four majors. He also leads their five-set match record at 2–1. (Full article...)
The tournament sees players competing for their country in four singles and one doubles matches, known as rubbers, over the course of three days, with the team that wins three rubbers progressing. The countries are divided into groups based upon their location or performance in previous years. The Davis Cup World Group is the top level of the competition and features matches between players from the top 16 countries at the start of the year. Countries that lose their first round match face a relegation play-off against winning countries from the continental zones. World Group winning countries progress to the quarter-finals. Nations have to win a further three ties in order to claim the position of Davis Cup champions.The United States are the most successful nation in the history of the competition, with 32 victories. Australia are second with 28 (individually or in a combined Australasia team) and Great Britain and France are tied for third with 10. Teams from Europe have won the competition the most with 48 victories, followed by North America with 33 and Oceania with 28. (Full article...)
Image 3Wimbledon operates a ticket resale system where returned Show Court tickets can be purchased. All proceeds go to charity. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Tilden dominated the world of international tennis in the first half of the 1920s, and during his 20-year amateur period from 1911 to 1930, won 138 of 192 tournaments he contested. He owns a number of all-time tennis achievements, including the career match-winning record and the career winning percentage at the U.S. Championships. At the 1929 U.S. National Championships, Tilden became the first player to reach ten finals at the same Grand Slam event. Tilden, who was frequently at odds with the rigid United States Lawn Tennis Association about his amateur status and income derived from newspaper articles, won his last Grand Slam event in 1930 at Wimbledon at the age of 37. He turned professional at the end of that year and toured with other professionals for the next 15 years. (Full article...)
... that American Colossus is a biography of a man who was "the most famous sportsman in the world" and "the most forgotten great athlete in American history"?
... that in high school, tennis player Sara Daavettila went an entire season without losing a game?
Entrance to Centre Court, Wimbledon. A new, temporary roof was built for the 86 year-old stadium for Wimbledon 2008, but a three-year project to install a retractable roof in time for the 2009 Championships. 1,190 new seats will also be added to expand the Court's capacity from 13,810 observers to 15,000.
![Image 1 The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, wheelchair tennis, and beach tennis. It was founded in 1913 as the International Lawn Tennis Federation by twelve national tennis associations. As of 2016,[update] there are 211 national and six regional associations that make up the ITF's membership. The ITF's governance responsibilities include maintaining and enforcing the rules of tennis, regulating international team competitions, promoting the game, and preserving the sport's integrity via anti-doping and anti-corruption programs. The ITF partners with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to govern professional tennis. (Full article...)](/media/wikipedia/en/d/d2/Blank.png)
![Image 1 The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, wheelchair tennis, and beach tennis. It was founded in 1913 as the International Lawn Tennis Federation by twelve national tennis associations. As of 2016,[update] there are 211 national and six regional associations that make up the ITF's membership. The ITF's governance responsibilities include maintaining and enforcing the rules of tennis, regulating international team competitions, promoting the game, and preserving the sport's integrity via anti-doping and anti-corruption programs. The ITF partners with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to govern professional tennis. (Full article...)](/wiki/File:Blank.png?lang=en)
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Roger Federer, the all-time record holder in men's singles (from Wimbledon Championships)
Andrea Vavassori was part of the 2024 winning mixed doubles team. (from US Open (tennis))
Wimbledon operates a ticket resale system where returned Show Court tickets can be purchased. All proceeds go to charity. (from Wimbledon Championships)
John Peers was part of the 2025 winning mixed doubles team. (from Australian Open)
Jeļena Ostapenko was part of the 2024 winning women's doubles team. (from US Open (tennis))
Jordan Thompson was part of the 2024 winning men's doubles team. (from US Open (tennis))
Wimbledon ball girl at the net, 2007 (from Wimbledon Championships)
Rafael Nadal holding the Coupe des Mousquetaires in 2006 (from French Open)
Harri Heliövaara was part of the 2024 winning men's doubles team. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Carlos Alcaraz, the 2024 gentlemen's singles champion. (from Wimbledon Championships)
A Royal Marines Commando as a services steward in 2005 (from Wimbledon Championships)
View from seats of Wimbledon Court No. 1 (from Wimbledon Championships)
Kateřina Siniaková was part of the 2025 winning women's doubles team. (from Australian Open)
Harri Heliövaara was part of the 2025 winning men's doubles team. (from Australian Open)
Molla Mallory, the all-time record holder in women's singles (from US Open (tennis))
Aerial view of the grounds (from Wimbledon Championships)
Umpires Magdi Somat and Carlos Bernardes between Wimbledon matches in 2013 (from Wimbledon Championships)
The order of play for all courts is displayed on boards around the grounds. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Sara Errani was part of the winning women's and mixed doubles team in 2025. (from French Open)
Rod Laver Arena, the main court of the Australian Open, in 2023 (from Australian Open)
Bill Larned, a joint all-time record holder in men's singles (from US Open (tennis))
Max Purcell was part of the 2024 winning men's doubles team. (from US Open (tennis))
Novak Djokovic, the all-time record holder in men's singles. (from Australian Open)
Martina Navratilova, the all-time record holder in women's singles (from Wimbledon Championships)
New Show Court Arena that opened in 2022 (from Australian Open)
Taylor Townsend was part of the 2024 winning women's doubles team. (from Wimbledon Championships)
The Melbourne Sports and Entertainment precinct on the banks of the Yarra River in 2010. (from Australian Open)
Court Philippe Chatrier during the 2013 French Open (from French Open)
Strawberries and cream at Wimbledon (from Wimbledon Championships)
The Ladies' (top) and Gentlemen's singles trophies (from Wimbledon Championships)
People watching the Championships' broadcast in Canary Wharf (from Wimbledon Championships)
Debenture of the All England Lawn Tennis Ground Ltd., issued 20th August 1930 (from Wimbledon Championships)
The various trophies contested at the Wimbledon championships being displayed at the All England Club museum (from Wimbledon Championships)
Kateřina Siniaková was part of the 2024 winning women's doubles team. (from Wimbledon Championships)
The Norman Brookes Challenge Cup (from Australian Open)
Arthur Ashe Stadium with the roof closed in 2018. (from US Open (tennis))
Jannik Sinner, 2024 men's singles champion. (from US Open (tennis))
Sara Errani was part of the 2024 winning mixed doubles team. (from US Open (tennis))
Rafael Nadal, the all-time record holder in men's singles (from French Open)
Jasmine Paolini was part of the winning women's doubles team in 2025. (from French Open)
Aryna Sabalenka, 2024 women's singles champion. It was her third major title. (from US Open (tennis))
Centre Court at Wimbledon in May 2019 (from Wimbledon Championships)
Todd Woodbridge holding the Gentlemen's doubles silver challenge cup in 2004 (from Wimbledon Championships)
Horacio Zeballos was part of the winning men's doubles team in 2025. (from French Open)
Sébastien Grosjean takes a shot on Court 18 during the 2004 Championships. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Court 10. On the outside courts there is no reserved seating. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Jan Zieliński was part of the 2024 winning mixed doubles team. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Commemorative plaque at Court 18 marking the longest tennis match in history (from Wimbledon Championships)
Hsieh Su-wei was part of the 2024 winning mixed doubles team. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Composition of the courts (from French Open)
Rod Laver Arena night session in 2007, the last year the tournament used the Rebound Ace surface. (from Australian Open)
Margaret Court Arena at the Australian Open in 2005 prior to its redevelopment. Rod Laver Arena is in the background. (from Australian Open)
Henry Patten was part of the 2024 winning men's doubles team. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Margaret Court, the all-time record holder in women's singles. (from Australian Open)
New Rod Laver Arena entrance added in 2018 as part of the Melbourne Park redevelopment. (from Australian Open)
Chris Evert, the all-time record holder in women's singles (from French Open)
Carlos Alcaraz, the 2025 men's singles champion (from French Open)
Bill Tilden, a joint all-time record holder in men's singles (from US Open (tennis))
The Royal Gallery at Centre Court, Wimbledon (from Wimbledon Championships)
Henry Patten was part of the 2025 winning men's doubles team. (from Australian Open)
Coco Gauff, the 2025 women's singles champion (from French Open)
Marcel Granollers was part of the winning men's doubles team in 2025. (from French Open)
Richard Sears, a joint all-time record-holder in men's singles (from US Open (tennis))
Jannik Sinner, 2025 men's singles champion. (from Australian Open)
Barbora Krejčíková, the 2024 ladies' singles champion. (from Wimbledon Championships)
Lyudmyla Kichenok was part of the 2024 winning women's doubles team. (from US Open (tennis))
Arthur Ashe stadium in 2010, before the retractable roof was added. (from US Open (tennis))
The Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup (from Australian Open)
Olivia Gadecki was part of the 2025 winning mixed doubles team. (from Australian Open)
Madison Keys, 2025 women's singles champion. (from Australian Open)_3_cropped.jpg?lang=en)
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