Welcome to e-tennis.org! Tennis has one of the most robust histories of modern sports. While others such as baseball or basketball can claim decades, perhaps a century of ancestry, tennis, which is also known as lawn tennis stretches back more than twice that time period. In fact, if you follow its lineage back to the game of real (or royal) tennis, the game originated back in the 16th century. That’s more than 500 years that tennis has been played.
In modern tennis, unlike its ancient predecessor, you don’t need to be of the nobility to play. In fact all you really need is a high quality tennis racquet and some tennis balls. Most metropolitan areas are equipped with open to the public courts. Since owning a court was the major reason only the nobility practiced tennis in the first centuries of its life, the range of players has greatly increased.
With the increase in players, a market opened up for the other basic requirements for tennis. Tennis racquets especially became something that manufacturers leapt on as a great market to invest in. As a result, today we have racquets from such diverse manufacturers as Wilson, Prince, Head, Yonex, Babolat, and other top selling racquets.
Modern tennis has a professional season that lasts for 11 out of the 12 months of the year. The major stops along the way are the four major competitions that make up the grand slams. These tournaments are the Australian Open, The French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. They are unevenly spaced, with the Australian Open happening in January, and the other three tournaments happening in April-September. Interspersed around these larger tournaments are a host of smaller invitational and open tournaments. For example, in the month of March there are two tournaments with around nine million dollars in prize money.
Of course, recreational play is an entirely different game than competitive play. The goal isn’t necessarily just to win (although really, who doesn’t play to win?) but also to relax and enjoy yourself as well. There are even recreational leagues you can join that will match you with players in your skill range so that you can both enjoy a fun and challenging game.
Tennis, like golf, was historically a primarily white sport. Thankfully the Williams sisters are doing for tennis what Tiger did for golf. They play, and play well enough to beat anyone on any given day. Both Serena and Venus have won major open titles, but their greatest contribution to the sport comes in their leadership. Both sisters have been at the forefront of the push to make compensation equal for male and female tennis players. In 2007 the last of the major opens, Wimbledon and the French Open, finally gave over and offered equal prize money for both male and female competitors.
While we specialize in tennis racquets here at e-tennis.org, they are not the only tennis equipment we carry, we also have a full line of shoes, balls and apparel so that you can hit the court looking your absolute best.