Tennis court: general information. Tennis Field where tennis players play

Tennis is gaining more and more popularity. It is played by professional and amateur athletes, adults and children. What should the dimensions be? tennis court? This is what we will talk about.

What is a tennis court?

Playing tennis requires a fairly large court. Unfortunately, the majority of amateur gardeners do not have the opportunity to build a court on their dacha plot.

The area of ​​600 m2 does not allow for a full-fledged tennis court even for amateur players.

But there is a way out. Tennis is a collective game. It involves a minimum of 2 players. Therefore, using the territory adjacent to the garden partnership, you can equip an excellent tennis court, which will allow all members of the team to spend their leisure time in an organized manner.

What should be the dimensions of a tennis court in meters? The playing area is a flat area measuring 18 by 36 meters, or 648 m2.

Arrangement of a tennis court

To build a court you will need:

• sketch of a tennis court;
• availability of a suitable location;
• drainage pipes;
• sand, clay, fertile soil, crushed stone, artificial lawn grass;
• tennis net, posts for fastening it;
• possibility of installing wind protection;
• rollers for compacting and leveling soil.

In the selected area, soil leveling is carried out. The slope of the site should be no more than 1 degree. Drainage pipes are laid along the perimeter and diagonally to ensure water flow if the surface is soil or grass. When installing hard flooring (concrete or asphalt), drainage should not be installed diagonally.

The prepared site is covered with a layer of crushed stone, which is leveled with a roller. Next, pour a layer of sand, which is also compacted. An earthen mixture consisting of sand, clay and fertile soil is poured on top of this pillow. The proportions should be the same. The soil is leveled, its level is checked with a construction compass, then everything is compacted and watered for shrinkage. The base dries for 3 days. After this, preliminary marking of the site is done. At its base, posts for the net and supports for wind protection are installed. Artificial lawn grass turf is laid on the ground.

Tennis court dimensions

Tennis field markings are applied to the artificial turf. The court is made for doubles and singles play. Each type is characterized by its own court size.

To save money building material and marking areas for different types games are played on one field. What size should a tennis court be? The standard is 18 by 36 meters. But when they combine the fields of the steam room and single player, then it is worth noting their main difference - the field for a single game is smaller in width.

Court dimensions in doubles:

Tennis court dimensions in singles:

• central dividing line - 4.165 m;
• field width - 8.23 ​​m.

All other court size indicators are the same as in doubles.

Tennis court maintenance

Features of court care depend on its surface. The most complex manipulations require a primer coating. After each game it needs to be leveled, watered, and restoration work carried out after winter period time.

Hard surface courts (concrete, asphalt, wood, plastic) only need to be cleaned after rain and autumn leaves. Artificial grass fields require the least effort. They only need to be cleared of autumn leaves with a rake, while the water leaves through the drainage.

Tennis is played on special grounds - courts. Their sizes are strictly regulated by the rules. The length of the site is 23.77 m (78 ft), and the full width is 10.97 m (36 ft). During doubles play, the entire specified width of the court is used. Singles players play on a width of 8.23 ​​m (27 ft). To indicate the specified width of the court, two more sidelines are drawn parallel to the outer sidelines at a distance of 1.37 m (4.5 ft) from the court boundary lines.

The court is divided in the middle by a net. The height of the net near the posts should be 1.07 m, and in the middle of the court - 0.91 m. The cable on which the net is attached should not be thicker than 8 mm. The edge of the net and the belt that regulates its height in the middle must be white and no wider than 50 mm.

At a distance of 6.4 m on each side of the net, parallel segments are drawn connecting the inner side lines. These are called supply lines. A middle line is drawn from their middle to the net, which divides the halfcourt (the space from the net to the service line) on each side of the net into two service squares.

The back lines and the marks that bisect them should be 100mm wide. The middle line is 50 mm. The remaining lines can have a width from 25 to 50 mm.

The posts on which the net is attached are installed at a distance of 0.91 m from the side lines. Moreover, for a singles game this distance is measured from the inner side lines, and for a doubles game - from the outer ones.

Types of courts and surfaces

Courts can be outdoor or indoor. Open areas attract players fresh air and natural light. However, they cannot be played in the rain. The sun is also not always an ally of the players, since it can blind one of them. There are no such problems on indoor courts. In our country, the open court season begins in mid-April and ends in the second half of September.

Court surfaces can vary quite significantly. They can be roughly divided into two groups: natural and synthetic. Each of these groups is divided into subgroups. Natural courts include clay and grass surfaces. Synthetic surfaces are much more diverse: carpet, hard, artificial grass, regupol, teraflex, etc.

Priming

Clay courts are quite popular all over the world. Their main advantage is good shock absorption, that is, a small load on the knees of tennis players.

The ball bounces off the ground relatively slowly. In addition, the coating greatly affects its rotation. But getting balls on the ground is partly even easier, since the coating allows you to use sliding. This technique is often used by many top tennis players.

Another advantage of the ground is that it allows you to continue playing even in light rain. This is not recommended on grass or synthetic surfaces due to the risk of injury.

Acrylic (hard)

Most of the largest tournaments are held on this surface, due to the fact that it is characterized by stable rebound and durability. The advantages of courts with acrylic coatings are an almost perfectly flat surface and resistance to significant temperature changes. That is why acrylic is used for the construction of both open and closed areas.

Taraflex

This coating has a textured top layer and a durable internal fiberglass network. The basis of taraflex is polyvinyl chloride. Courts with such a coating are quite durable, provide high rebound and injury protection. Many professional tournaments are held on taraflex courts, including in Russia.

Regupol and Supreme

Also synthetic surfaces, which are used mainly for amateur competitions. The rebound of the ball from them is quite comfortable for the players, and the surface itself has a low risk of injury.

Carpet

Carpet is rarely used for professional tournaments because it is relatively slow. But for amateurs it is quite suitable. The undoubted advantages of carpeted courts are the low costs of their construction and maintenance.

Tennis vocabulary

Kicks

What is “kick” in tennis? How to understand the term "kix"? What does the slang word "kix" mean? Kicks is...

Tennis or tennis- a sport in which either two players compete (“singles”) or two teams consisting of two players (“doubles”). The task of the opponents (tennis players or tennis players) is to use rackets to send the ball to the opponent’s side so that he cannot reflect it, and at the same time, so that the ball does not fly out of the field of play.

Modern tennis has an official name "lawn tennis"(English lawn - lawn) to distinguish it from real tennis (or “jeu-de-paume”, in the French version of the name) - an older variety that is played indoors and on a completely different type of court. Tennis is Olympic form sports

The history of modern tennis dates back to the second half of the 19th century. The game, then called lawn tennis, was a development of an older indoor game.

The oldest modern tennis tournament, Wimbledon, dates back to 1877, and the oldest national team competition, the Davis Cup, dates back to 1900. Tennis is part of the program Olympic Games modernity, starting with the first Games in 1896, with a break of more than half a century, ending in 1988.

Professional athletes appeared in tennis, initially formally an amateur sport, in the 20s of the 20th century, and from the late 1960s the so-called Open Era began, within which all tournaments are open to both amateurs and professionals

Real tennis

The direct predecessor of modern tennis is considered to be an indoor game, which bore the same name until the end of the 19th century, and is now known as real tennis, or jeu de paume (French jeu de paume, literally translated as a palm game). Jeu de paume, which could be played by up to 12 people at once, appeared in the 11th century, apparently in monasteries. At first, in this game, as in manual pelota, the ball was hit with the hand, then gloves, bats and, finally, in the 16th century, rackets and a net appeared. At the same time, the popularity of jeu de paume, played by the French, English and Spanish kings of that time, peaked.
In the 16th century, almost all French kings played tennis: a tennis hall was equipped on the royal yacht of Francis I, Henry II ordered the construction of a tennis hall in the Louvre, and Charles IX in 1571, granting Parisian tennis players and racket-makers the right to guild, called tennis "one of the noblest, most honorable and wholesome exercises which princes, peers, and other persons of rank can indulge in." One of the favorite pastimes was tennis for Henry VIII Tudor, who built halls for this game in Westminster and Hampton Court (the latter has been used for its intended purpose for almost 500 years). In addition to monks and aristocrats, tennis also attracted the common people: medieval universities built halls, and townspeople played right in the streets. By 1600, every major French city had several halls, and Paris had more than 250 halls and more than a thousand outdoor courts; in 1604 it was also estimated that there were at least twice as many tennis halls as churches in England.
However, for most of its history, tennis remained a game of the elite. The small number of participants in the match and the limited space for spectators did not allow it to become a truly popular entertainment, and after a hundred years even in Paris there were only ten halls for playing tennis, all in poor condition. Tennis halls began to be adapted for other uses, including the performance of theater companies, and, according to the Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia of Theatre, this predetermined the shape of future theater halls. Nevertheless, with the development of modern tennis, the jeu de paume did not cease to exist. This sport was introduced at the 1908 Olympic Games, and a hundred years later there were about five thousand of its fans in the world, at a certain stage in Great Britain they gave their game the name “real” or “royal” tennis to distinguish it from the more common new game.

Invention of lawn tennis

Currently, it is not known for certain who invented tennis, but, according to the most common version, the founder of the game was Major Walter Wingfield. He invented the game to entertain guests at receptions at his mansion in Wales and published the first rules of the game in 1873. The game received two names at the same time: “spheristics” (English sphairistike from the Greek Σφαιριστική, meaning ball game) and “lawn tennis” (English lawn tennis, literally tennis for lawns). As a basis, he used contemporary tennis (in our time real tennis). The game, invented by Wingfield, also shows the influence of badminton, which was gaining popularity in those days. Thus, initially the height of the net between the halves of the court was, as in badminton, more than one and a half meters, and the score went up to 15 points in each game (the history of changes in the rules is discussed in the section Evolution of the rules). Also mentioned as possible fathers of modern tennis are the Briton Thomas Henry Gem and the Spaniard Augurio Perera, who adapted the game of rackets, a type of tennis, for grass on the outskirts of Birmingham back in 1858, and in 1872 founded a club for fans of the new game. After the appearance of Wingfield's game, Gem developed the rules for his game, which he called pelota, and the Leamington Club also renamed it lawn tennis.
Anticipating the commercial potential of lawn tennis, Wingfield patented it in 1874 and began selling sets of equipment and textbooks for the game (15 shillings per racket, 5 shillings per dozen balls and 6 pence per textbook), but quickly lost control of the game's distribution. Tennis began to develop rapidly in Great Britain and the USA, where it was brought already at the beginning of 1874. During the first year of sales, patented lawn tennis equipment was also sold to Canada, India, China and the Russian Emperor, but the market was quickly flooded with competitors' products.

The emergence of tournaments and national lawn tennis associations

Already in 1875, the rules developed by Wingfield were changed; a new set of rules was developed at Marylebone Cricket Club. In July 1877, the first lawn tennis tournament was held in Wimbledon, organized by the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club. Participants had to pay an entry fee of one pound and one shilling, and spectators paid one shilling for tickets. The tournament was open to everyone (a total of 22 people participated), the prize for the winner was worth 12 guineas, and in addition a silver cup worth 25 guineas was raffled off. In 1884, the Wimbledon tournament hosted the first women's tournament(although women had already played the Irish Championship five years earlier) and a men's doubles tournament, and in 1913, women's and mixed doubles competitions were added to them. In 1888, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) was founded, which in subsequent years established forty-three rules of the game, many of which are still valid today, and approved the holding of 73 tournaments over ten years.
In 1875, lawn tennis clubs were created in Scotland, Brazil and India, and in 1877 in Ireland and France. The first lawn tennis tournament in Australia was held in 1879. At the end of the 1870s, lawn tennis began to develop in Russia. The first lawn tennis section was organized at the St. Petersburg Cricket Club. The first international tournament in Russia took place in 1903 in St. Petersburg. At the same time, this tournament was the first championship of St. Petersburg.

The popularity of tennis at the end of the 19th century is evidenced by the fact that in 1896 it was included in the program of the First Olympic Games of our time along with eight other sports. At the first Olympic tennis tournament, two sets of medals were played - in men's singles and men's doubles. Four years later, the first set Olympic medals in history among women it was played in a tennis tournament. The first Olympic mixed pairs tournament was also held as part of the same Olympics. The tennis tournament was held as part of the Olympic Games until 1924, after which it was resumed only in 1988.

Davis Cup

In 1899, four students at Harvard University came up with the idea of ​​holding a tennis tournament in which national teams would participate. One of them, Dwight Davis, developed a scheme for the tournament and bought a prize for the winner with his own money - a silver cup. The first tournament took place in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1900, and was attended by the US and British teams. Davis, along with two other Harvard students, played on the US team, which unexpectedly won, then winning the next match in 1902. The tournament has been played every year since then (with a few exceptions), and after Davis's death in 1945, it became known as the Davis Cup and is now a popular annual event in the world of tennis. Until 1973, this tournament was won by teams from only four countries: the USA, Great Britain, Australia and France (however, it must be taken into account that the Australians competed with the New Zealanders from 1905 to 1919 and won six titles during this time).
In 1923, one of the world's leading tennis players, Hazel Hotchkiss-Whiteman, established the Whiteman Team Cup in order to popularize women's tennis, but this competition, being first held between the women's national teams of the USA and Great Britain, remained an internal affair of these two teams throughout its history. existence until 1990, when the British side announced the termination of participation in this competition. It was only in 1963 that the International Lawn Tennis Federation established the Fed Cup - women's team competition, which became an analogue of the men's Davis Cup.

Grand slam

The dominance of the USA, Great Britain, France and Australia in pre-war world tennis led to the fact that the tournaments held in these countries became the most prestigious. The four largest tournaments - the Wimbledon tournament, the US Championships, the French Championships, held since 1891 and open to participants from other countries since 1925, and the Australian Championships (held since 1905) - in the 30s received the common name "Bolshoi tournaments". helmet", borrowed from the card game bridge. The term, according to the US Open website, was coined by New York Times reporter John Kieran in 1933, when Australian tennis player Jack Crawford won the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon and reached the final of the US Open, where he was opposed by Briton Fred Perry. Kieran wrote: "If Crawford beats Perry today it will be like winning a grand slam on the tennis court." The Grand Slam did not win that year, and Don Budge became its first winner five years later. According to another version, in particular, given on the official website of the Wimbledon tournament, the term arose after Budge won all four tournaments, and its author is American sports journalist Allison Danzig.

Professional tennis

Beginning in the 1920s, professional tennis players began making money by performing in exhibition matches in front of audiences who paid to watch the game. The first person to sign a professional contract to perform in public was the Antwerp Olympic champion Suzanne Lenglen. Her tour was organized by entrepreneur Charles Pyle, who also tried to sign a contract with other leading tennis players in the world, Helen Wills and Molloy Mallory, but was unsuccessful. Then Mary Brown, three-time US champion and captain of the national team in the Whiteman Cup, who was already 35 years old at that time, was engaged as Lenglen's partner. The amount of Brown's contract, according to some sources, was 30 thousand dollars, and according to others, 75 thousand. Pyle also signed French No. 4 Paul Feret and American tennis star, two-time Olympic champion and Davis Cup winner Vincent Richards, along with two other lesser-known tennis players. First professional tennis The first match in history took place on October 9, 1926 in New York at indoor arena Madison Square Garden, in the presence of 13 thousand spectators. In tennis circles, the emergence of a professional tour was received with mixed feelings, causing both support and harsh criticism.
Although Pyle's American tour was profitable, he refused to renew contracts or organize a similar tour in Europe, citing financial differences with Lenglen. However, Vincent Richards continued the professionalization of tennis by creating the Association of Professional Tennis Players and organizing the first US Professional Tennis Championships, held in New York in 1927. Richards also became the first US professional champion.
However, Richards was not as successful a manager as Pyle, and the professional tour ceased to generate income until he was joined in 1931 by multiple Wimbledon, US Championship and Davis Cup winner Bill Tilden, whose confrontation with the 1929 US professional champion, the Czechoslovakian master Karel Kozhelug again attracted the attention of the public and brought in about a quarter of a million dollars per season. The next successful addition to the list of professionals was Ellsworth Wines in 1934, thanks to whom the tour's grosses again amounted to a quarter of a million dollars for the year. In 1937, Fred Perry, star of the British Davis Cup team, turned professional. He was roughly equal in class to Vines, and together they raised $400,000 in a year. In the next two years, the fees amounted to 175 and 200 thousand dollars, and even the joining of the tour in 1939 by the first ever Grand Slam winner, Don Budge, did not particularly affect the level of income.
Most performances on the professional tennis tour were unrelated matches between individual players; Several such matches took place on the same evening without determining the overall winner. But in the 1930s, a system of professional tournaments developed in the world, parallel to the amateur one, and professional tennis players, in addition to participating in the tour, also regularly competed in such tournaments using the playoff system. The first professional tournaments in Europe took place in the French Riviera, and in 1931, professional tennis reached Paris. In the fall of 1934, a large professional tennis tour Nir was held for the first time at Wembley Stadium in London; this competition, together with the Paris tournament and the US Professional Championship, determined the leaders of world professional tennis in subsequent years, which for professionals was an analogue of the amateur Grand Slam.
After World War II, there was a trend of outflow best players- amateurs in professional tennis: for example, in 1948, Jack Kramer, who had just won the Davis Cup with the US team, turned professional, and was soon followed by Pancho Gonzalez, who replaced him in the national team. The 1951 Grand Slam winners in men's doubles, Frank Sedgman and Kenneth McGregor, continued the trend, joining the ranks of professionals in 1952.
Kramer, who won several major tournaments in the early 1950s, then became a professional tennis manager and began an aggressive campaign to recruit young talent. An important step was a change in the terms of the contract of participants in professional tours: instead of a share in income, they were now offered guaranteed fees: for example, Sedgman was offered an amount of 75 thousand dollars per season, and another Australian tennis player, Lew Hoad, 125 thousand for 25 months. Having formed a group of leading players, Kramer, as part of a tour in cities where there were no regular tournaments, held round-robin tournaments that attracted Special attention spectators, as this gave the games that element of competition that individual matches lacked.

Open era. Prerequisites for the transition and the emergence of open tournaments

For 40 years, professional and amateur tennis were strictly separated - once a player became a "professional", he no longer had the right to play in amateur tournaments. In 1930, the United States Lawn Tennis Association put forward the idea of ​​open tournaments where both amateurs and professionals could participate, but the International Lawn Tennis Federation consistently failed the proposal both that year and thereafter. In fact, however, top amateur tennis players have been paid for their performances for many years in the form of undisclosed bonuses from sponsors and fictitious bills for travel and housing. In 1963, leading British sports commentator Brian Granville wrote in the Sunday Times that tennis was no longer truly amateur sports at least a quarter of a century earlier. At the same time, leading tennis players easily parted with their amateur status, moving on to professional tours (in particular, in the 1960s, Australian amateur tennis stars Rod Laver and John Newcombe joined the ranks of professionals). In 1967, a new professional tour, the World Championship Tennis (WCT), was announced, with former amateurs Tony Roche, Cliff Drysdale and Nikola Pilic contracted to manage it in addition to Newcombe. Shortly thereafter, another leading amateur, Roy Emerson, signed with another professional tour, the National Tennis League (NTL).

Spurred by the constant leakage of top amateur tennis players to the professional tours, in 1967 the LTA finally decided to end the division of tennis and equalized amateurs and professionals in its tournaments. It was announced that the 1968 Wimbledon tournament would be open to all players, regardless of their status. Wimbledon's example was followed by other major tournaments that same year. The first Open tournament was held in Bournemouth (UK) in April 1968, and the first champions of the Open era were Australian Ken Rosewall and local native Virginia Wade. In 1969, the official USLTA classification divided all tennis players into three categories: amateurs, touring professionals (bound by contracts to play on tour), and registered professionals eligible to participate in open tournaments, where guest performers were still not allowed. This classification was also adopted by the International Lawn Tennis Federation. This marked the beginning of the Open Era in modern tennis, when all players have the right to play in any tournament.

Formation of tours and struggle between tennis organizations

The ban on participation in open tournaments and the Davis Cup for touring professionals was lifted a few years later, in 1972, but by that time the concept itself had become outdated. With the advent of the Open Era, professional tennis tours are replaced by "tours" consisting of a series of international tournaments held in different countries. The first such tours for men were the World Championship Tennis (WCT), the National Tennis League (absorbed by the WCT already in 1970) and the Grand Prix Tour organized by the ILTF in 1970. At the same time, through the efforts of the editor-in-chief of World Tennis magazine Gladys Heldman and women's tennis star Billie Jean King, the Virginia Slims women's tennis tour (named after the sponsoring company, a cigarette manufacturer) was organized; since 1973, it has been held under the auspices of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), and since 1972, the organization of the men's Grand Prix has been taken over by the newly formed Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), with the participation (from 1974 to 1989) of the ITF and the organizers of individual tournaments in within the framework of the so-called Men's Tennis Council. Men's Tennis Council). A similar structure involving the WTA and ITF was created in women's tennis after the international federation finally recognized the women's professional tour. In the system proposed by the organizers of the Grand Prix Tour and the Virginia Slims, players accumulated points according to their placing in each tournament, and at the end of the season the holders best ratings were awarded cash prizes. Several of the highest ranking holders were also invited to participate in the final tournament of the year, where additional cash prizes were distributed; Thus, in addition to the total prize fund of 550 thousand dollars distributed by the ATP in 1974, another 100 thousand dollars were awarded in its final Masters tournament.

The Grand Slam tournaments, which continued to be managed by the ILTF, were not controlled by professional tour managers. The conflict between the ILTF and the professional tours led to the absence of touring professionals from a number of Grand Slam tournaments at the start of the Open era, and to a significant increase in the prize money of these four tournaments. The United States Tennis Association also joined the fight for control of the tournament schedule, refusing to recognize the agreements between the ITF and WCT and organizing its own tour, played at the beginning of the season indoors.

"Battle of the Sexes"

In the early 70s, women's organizations actively lobbied for equal cash prizes for tennis players regardless of gender. In 1970, the first prize in women's singles at most tournaments was about a quarter of that in men's, and Billie Jean King and her associates were not prepared to tolerate this. In 1973, they achieved success when the prize money was equalized at the US Open. This activity drew criticism from people who believed that women's tennis should not be given equal rights to men's tennis. The mouthpiece of this criticism was Bobby Riggs, the 1939 Wimbledon champion in all three categories and two-time US champion (1939 and 1941), professional since 1942, and subsequently sports commentator. In 1973, Riggs, 55, declared that men his age were capable of handling any of the world's top female tennis players and were therefore equally entitled to cash prizes. His first exhibition match against Margaret Court seemed to confirm his words: Riggs won easily 6-2, 6-1. After this, Billie Jean King accepted his challenge; their match was shown live on television, and King won it 6:4, 6:3, 6:3. The match helped bring sponsorship attention to women's tennis, leading to speculation that Riggs' entire campaign may have been a rig.

In 1974, also with the active participation of Billie Jean King, the World Team Tennis team tennis league was created, where teams consisting of players of both sexes took part. The first year of its holding was marked by a conflict with the French Tennis Federation, which considered the league as a competitor to the summer European tournaments and refused to allow its participants to participate in the French Open. This may have prevented Jimmy Connors from winning the Grand Slam, who won every other Grand Slam that year. 14 years later, the Hopman Cup began, a prestigious exhibition tournament for national teams consisting of one man and one woman, held under the auspices of the International Tennis Federation.

Return to the Olympic Games program

Already in 1968, tennis was again included in the program of the Olympic Games, but only as a demonstration sport, and the question of the status of the players did not arise. Also indicative was tennis tournament 1984, but already in 1988 tennis returned to Olympic program as a competitive form. This meant that tennis players who officially had the status of professionals could now participate in the Olympics, which was impossible in previous years.

Growing influence of players

In 1978, there was a partial merger of the two main men's professional tours: the Grand Prix and the WCT, under whose auspices only a few tournaments remained. In the absence of competition, the management of the Grand Prix tour could change the tournament grid and prize fund at your own discretion. The busy tournament schedule, leading to injuries and general exhaustion, caused a negative reaction from the players.

In 1988, the director of the Association of Tennis Professionals, Hamilton Jordan, with the support of leading singles tennis players, announced the upcoming formation of a new professional tour - the ATP Tour, in which the players themselves would be directly involved in determining the policy; in particular, it was planned to introduce an eight-week vacation into the tournament bracket. The idea was supported in a short time by 85 players out of the first hundred in the ATP rankings, they were joined by the organizers of many major tournaments, whose votes were subsequently taken into account when forming the bracket along with the votes of the players themselves. The ATP Tour started in 1990.

Spread of tennis in the world

After the start of the Open Era, the popularity of tennis around the world, already significant, continued to grow. New countries began to be added to the four leading countries in world tennis (Australia, Great Britain, USA and France). Thus, since 1974, when South Africa became the fifth country to win the Davis Cup, it has been won by teams from 11 countries, including Sweden seven times, Spain five times, Germany and the united Germany three times and Russia twice. The Fed Cup has been won by ten different teams since the start of the Open era, including Czechoslovakia five times (and Slovakia and the Czech Republic once each), Spain five times, Russia four times, Italy three times and West Germany/unified Germany twice. Since the introduction of professional ratings ( see Official Tennis Hierarchy and International Tennis Hall of Fame) the first position in the men's ranking, in addition to the Americans and Australians, was occupied by three Swedes, three Spaniards and two representatives of Russia (and in total representatives of 11 countries), and in the women's ranking there were two representatives each from Belgium, Russia and Serbia (and in total tennis players from 11 countries ).

Tennis organizations, especially the International Tennis Federation, are making significant efforts to popularize the game around the world. In 2009 alone, the ITF and the Grand Slam Development Fund invested more than $3.5 million in the development of tennis in the world; more than 400 thousand were donated by the Olympic Solidarity Foundation. These organizations supported 25 regional youth tennis competitions around the world, including youth championship Africa. In just 23 years, the ITF and the Grand Slam Development Fund have invested more than $71 million in the development of tennis in the world. The ITF also maintains its own circuit of more than 350 youth tournaments taking place in more than one hundred countries around the world. About ten thousand young tennis players take part in ITF junior tour tournaments. Under the auspices of the International Tennis Federation, 150 tournaments are held in 37 countries for tennis players in wheelchairs.

Evolution of equipment and rules

Technical improvements

Modern tennis racket with carbon fiber body

Although lawn tennis owes its origins to the advent of rubber balls that bounced better on grass than traditional cloth balls filled with wool or sawdust, the equipment changed little in the following decades. Major changes began only in the 1960s, when experiments began with the shape and material of tennis rackets in order to give greater power and accuracy to hits. While until the 1960s rackets were made of wood (the first metal racket released for sale was patented only in 1953 by Rene Lacoste), steel rackets came into use in 1967, followed by the appearance of rackets made of aluminum, graphite, fiberglass and composite materials, in particular carbon fiber.

In 1976, the Prince company released a tennis racket with a longer and wider head, the area of ​​which was one and a half times larger than the then accepted samples. The area was increased to reduce the percentage of misses, but the effect not intended by the creators of the new racket was a significant increase in the force of the blow. By the 90s various modifications professional rackets had an area 25-60% larger than the standard one. New racket sizes were better suited for the two-handed backhand, which dramatically increased its popularity. At the end of the 80s, the production of rackets with a thicker rim also began, which also increases the power of the blow. This type of racket turned out to be in demand among professional tennis players and especially young athletes who still lacked their own strength. Since the late 1970s, the top ten in world women's tennis has regularly featured athletes under 18, including Tracy Austin, Andrea Jaeger, Steffi Graf, Gabriela Sabatini, Monica Seles and Jennifer Capriati. In addition, from 1985 to 1990, three of the Grand Slam tournaments had the youngest players in their history winning the men's singles title: 17-year-old Boris Becker at Wimbledon, 17-year-old Michael Chang at the French Open and 19-year-old Pete Sampras at the US Open.

One of the modifications tennis racket, a double string racquet, was demonstrated in 1977. Double vertical strings, fastened together with adhesive tape or placed in plastic tubes, made it possible, at low tension, to deliver not only a particularly powerful (due to springiness), but also a highly twisted blow. The world's leading players refused to play against unpredictable opponents armed with such racquets, and the ITF eventually banned their use, citing the fact that they actually hit two shots instead of one, which was prohibited by the rules.

Certain changes have also occurred with tennis ball. Soon after Wingfield introduced the game, the rubber ball began to be lined with flannel. Then the balls, which were originally solid, began to be made hollow and inflated with gas. In 1972, the International Tennis Federation introduced yellow balls after research showed that yellow balls were easier to see on television screens, and yellow balls are now used in most major tournaments, including Wimbledon since 1986.

At the end of the 20th century, electronic devices began to penetrate tennis to improve the quality of refereeing. Since the early 1980s, Wimbledon and the US Open have used an electronic "Cyclops" system to detect where the sword touches (on or off the court). Since 1996, the Association of Tennis Professionals, and after it other tennis organizations, have used an electronic device called Trinity, which allows them to determine whether the ball has touched the net when serving. Another technological innovation that gradually found application in tennis was video replays. In 2005, video replays for referees were legalized in games professional league World TeamTennis, and a little later in the exhibition Hopman Cup. In 2006, the Hawk-Eye video replay technology began to be used on official international tournaments, including the US Open

Tennis fashion

Women's tennis suit, 1881

In the early years of lawn tennis, the uniform was quite uncomfortable. Thus, the first Wimbledon champion, Maud Watson, won her title in a bustle skirt and a man's straw hat, and even earlier women played in suits made of flannel and twill, and sometimes even in fur. Lottie Dod, the youngest Wimbledon champion, already wore mid-calf skirts that were part of her school uniform, and in 1905, American May Sutton allowed herself to go onto the court with her sleeves rolled up. However, petticoats and corsets remained part of women's tennis uniforms until the First World War.

After the war, Suzanne Lenglen became the trendsetter in tennis fashion. Another multiple Grand Slam winner, Elizabeth Ryan, once said: “All tennis players should be on their knees thanking Suzanne for freeing her from the tyranny of corsets.” Thanks to Lenglen, knee-length skirts and short sleeves became established in women's tennis. In addition, after Lenglen, headscarves came into fashion, and a little later Helen Wills introduced eye-protecting visors, similar to those used in golf, into fashion.

In the late 1930s, shorts began to replace skirts in women's tennis, and long trousers in men's tennis. IN last time The Wimbledon tournament was won in long trousers in 1946.

Tennis fashion in the first decades after World War II was largely dictated by the former tennis player and tennis referee, couturier Ted Tinling. In 1949, Gussie Moran's lace lingerie designs created a sensation, and he later designed costumes for Maria Bueno and Martina Navratilova.

Evolution of the rules

The basic rules and terminology of lawn tennis were formed already in the 1870s, including being borrowed from the jeu de paume:

• the name itself tennis(English) tennis), apparently derived from the French. tenez, imperative form of the verb tenir, "hold". It means, therefore, “hold!” With this shout, the real tennis player warned his opponent that he was about to serve. This explanation has been dominant since the second decade of the twentieth century, although towards the end of the century a theory emerged linking the name tennis with an old French word for the weaving shuttle and its movement back and forth, as does the ball in tennis.
• racket(English) racquet) comes from fr. racquette, which, in turn, comes from Arabic rakhat, meaning “palm”;
• English term deuce (smooth) comes from fr. à deux le jeu, meaning “to both is the game” (the score in the game is equal); according to another version, the word comes from the French. deux points, meaning that the player needs to win two points to win the game;
• English love, used to indicate the score "0" (for example, "40-love" is equivalent to "40:0"), may have come from the French. l'œuf, “egg,” implying the “zero” sign in the shape of an egg;
• The scoring system in games “15”, “30”, “40” comes from the French. quinze, trente, quarante. This reference system is associated either with the divisions on the clock dial (where, for the sake of euphony, the number 45 was replaced by 40), or with the limit on bets in games adopted in medieval France, where the maximum bet was 60 deniers, and intermediate bets were counted at 15 deniers. This system was not formed immediately, but soon after the publication of Wingfield’s book. At the same time, in the original version of the rules, Wingfield proposed the use of 15-point sets, which was borrowed from modern badminton (currently, sets in badminton count up to 21 points). The traditional tennis scoring system was brought back into lawn tennis along with the rectangular court shape before the first Wimbledon tournament and after Wingfield's patent expired.

The rules, adopted in 1875 by the Marylebone Club, have remained virtually unchanged over the past century. The main changes were made in order to increase the attractiveness of the game for spectators and concerned the scoring system. Thus, in the mid-1950s in the USA, a through system of scoring in sets with a change of serve after every five balls was proposed, borrowed by James van Alen from table tennis; under this system, called Van Alen Simplified Scoring System (VASSS), the set was won by the tennis player who scored 31 points first.

A significant step towards reducing playing time was, also on Van Alen's initiative, the introduction of a tiebreaker - a decisive game, currently played in most tournaments with a set score of 6:6. In the past, a set could only be won by a margin of two games or more, leading to drawn-out rallies. A good example is the fifth set of the 2010 match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon, where the deciding set of the match is still played under the old rules. Isner and Mayu played this set for more than a day, including a break for the night (the entire match lasted 665 minutes of pure time) and finished it with a score of 70:68 in games. The tiebreaker was first introduced at the US Open in 1970 after the previous year at Wimbledon, Pancho Gonzalez and Charlie Pasarell spent more than five hours on the court in a match that ended with an aggregate score of 22:24, 1: 6, 16:14, 6:3, 11:9, and the end-to-end scoring system was proposed by van Alen after amateur tournament 1954, held in Newport, the opponents played 88 games in four hours (the match ended with a score of 6:3, 9:7, 12:14, 6:8, 10:8). With the introduction of tie-breaks in other tournaments, this possibility disappeared, in particular, the 1954 match in Newport would have lasted 18 games less.

The Association of Tennis Professionals, in addition, since the beginning of the 21st century has been making additional efforts to turn matches into doubles into more attractive ones for both spectators and leading singles players, using methods of reducing playing time. So, in June 2005, a decision was made to reduce the number of games in the set: the tiebreaker was to be played with the score not 6:6, but 4:4, and in the games themselves, play was also canceled up to a difference of two goals, and in case of equality 3:3 (or, according to the old system, 40:40) one decisive point was to be played out (the so-called “system without advantage”, English. no-ad system). With the score 1:1 in sets, a super tiebreaker was to be played up to ten points (or up to a difference of two points with a score of 9:9). In addition, it was planned to reserve a significant part of the places in doubles tournaments for tennis players who are in high positions in the singles rankings. The result of the introduced innovations was a lawsuit filed against the leadership of the ATP by the leading doubles masters, led by Bob and Mike Bryan. In January next year a compromise was reached: some of the innovations (besides the super tiebreaker in the third set and the cancellation of play up to a difference of two points in regular games) were cancelled. These events were called the “couples revolution in the Asia-Pacific” in the press. Initially, the new rules were criticized as being too heavy weight giving luck, but over time it turned out that their introduction had virtually no effect on the alignment in the upper echelon, while attracting spectators due to greater dynamism in the game.

In addition to the scoring system, changes were made to the rules over time regarding the drawing of lots. Thus, already in 1885, a rule was adopted according to which in each circle, starting from the second, the number of tournament participants should be a multiple of two. This meant that some of the participants in the first round could advance to the second without playing, but then each participant would have an opponent. There was no such rule, for example, at the first Wimbledon tournament, and as a result, one of the semi-finalists advanced to the final without playing. The second improvement, proposed in the same 1885 by the mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known in our time as Lewis Carroll, was adopted only in 1922 and consisted in the fact that the strongest participants were separated according to the tournament grid so as not to meet in the first rounds (the so-called “seeding” of participants).

Development of technique and tactics of the game

Changes in rules and equipment have left their mark on the dominant style of play, technical elements and tactics throughout the history of tennis. Thus, in the first years after the advent of lawn tennis, players, including the first champion of the Wimbledon tournament, Spencer Gore, used the side serve adopted in the rackets game, which was, in particular, due to the height of the net, which in the initial version of the game was raised above the ground by one and a half meters. But already in 1878, during the second Wimbledon tournament, the overhand serve was used, which soon became generally accepted among strong players. At the same tournament, one of the first tactical techniques appeared - a candle. Spencer Gore professed a style of play that in modern tennis is called " serve-and-volley"(lit. feed and mesh): after serving, he quickly moved towards the net and further exhausted his opponent, “chasing” him from one end of the court to the other, sometimes striking the ball even before it crossed the net line (later such hits were prohibited by the rules). The candle countered this tactic with Wimbledon's second champion, Frank Hadow, repeatedly sending the ball high over Gore, forcing him away from the net towards the baseline. In addition to the tactics of the game, technology also developed. Thus, at the turn of the century, the so-called American twist serve appeared. American twist), who played an important role in the victories of the US team in the first Davis Cup.

Tennis gradually evolved from a recreational game into a sport. In 1878, a landmark article appeared in the Harvard University newspaper, bitterly noting the exodus of athletic students from the rowing teams to the lawn tennis courts. Another step towards turning lawn tennis into a competitive sport was made in California, where it became popular on military bases along the US Pacific Coast. In California, tennis was played on clay and even cement courts with all the passion and energy that the military could muster. As a result, in 1909, the Californian pair Mel Long and Maurice McLaughlin easily won the US doubles championship. Subsequently, McLaughlin twice became the US singles champion.

Subsequently, schools of tennis play that were quite different from one another took shape, associated with the predominance of specific types of tennis courts in certain countries. In the United States, courts with artificial hard surfaces became increasingly popular; in continental Europe, preference was given to clay courts, and the British and the inhabitants of their colonies remained faithful to the grass lawn. At a certain stage, it became clear that a tennis player, accustomed to one type of surface, often finds it difficult to adapt to another. This could easily be seen in the series of matches between Vincent Richards and Karel Kozelug in the late 1920s: on the slow clay courts, the European Kozelug dominated from the baseline, while on the fast grass courts, Richards, a graduate of the New York Tennis School, won , whose main weapon was a quick exit to the net.

The evolution of tennis into a competitive sport required that a player be able to play both sides equally well. At the same time, for most of tennis history, the backhand (closed racket shot) remained less accurate and powerful than the open racket shot, although there were exceptions, such as Don Budge, who turned his backhand into an offensive weapon. In an attempt to increase power with a closed racket, some players would use both hands to hold the racket (on extremely rare occasions, players such as the leading mid-century professional tennis player Pancho Segura also played with an open racket in this manner), but this style remained not very common until the advent of rackets with increased head area (see Technical Improvements), after which many players switched to a two-handed backhand.

Continental (A) and eastern (B) grip

A more powerful blow with an open racket became possible due to a change in the dominant racket grip technique from the so-called eastern and continental ones, in which the base of the index finger is located on the right or upper right side of the octagonal racket handle (illustrated on the left), to the western one, in which the palm actually picks it up from below. This transition was made possible by the gradual replacement of grass courts with their low ball bounce by artificial ones in the second half of the twentieth century. If at the beginning of the Open era one of the world's leading tennis players, Stan Smith, used a grip intermediate between the eastern and continental ones, meeting balls flying at waist level with an open racket, then at the end of the century, Gustavo Kuerten, a clay court specialist, already used a western grip when hitting the ball at chest level. The transition from the eastern and continental grip to the western and similar ones also led to a change in the shape of the racket and a reduction in its weight due to the use of new materials.

Official Tennis Hierarchy and International Tennis Hall of Fame

Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf

Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf were the longest-serving world No. 1s.

In the 1970s, the men's and women's professional tennis associations introduced player rankings designed to reflect the balance of power among tennis players. Since 1973, when the ATP ranking began to operate, over twenty male tennis players have officially been ranked number one in the world. Among them, this title was held for the longest time, each over five years in total (in chronological order) Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. The first to be officially awarded this title was Ilie Nastase, who held first position in the ranking for a total of 40 weeks. The stellar years of Rod Laver, the only two-time Grand Slam winner in the history of men's tennis, once each as an amateur and as a professional, occurred before 1973, and he never officially became the first racket of the world. Similar to men's women's rating was introduced by the WTA in 1975. Since then, the first line has been occupied by 21 tennis players, and Chris Evert (the first title holder), Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf held this position for more than five years in total (Graf - more than seven).

In the absence of objective criteria, it is difficult to name the best tennis players in the world before the Open era. A similar criterion can be performance in Grand Slam tournaments, which were won before the start of the Open era by Don Budge and Rod Laver for men and Maureen Connolly for women. However, the history of tennis contains the names of tennis players who did not win the Grand Slam, but were considered outstanding racket masters. For example, Roy Emerson, although he did not win the Grand Slam, by the time the ratings were introduced, he was the leader among men in the number of titles won in the tournaments included in it (twelve victories in singles, at least two in each of the four tournaments).

Among the compiled lists of “the best tennis players of all time”, in particular, the list compiled by Jack Kramer is famous. Kramer's autobiography, published in 1979, presented lists of the best tennis players of our time and the past by individual components of the game. In particular, he considers the first serve to be the best from Ellsworth Vines, Pancho Gonzalez and Bill Tilden. The best specialist the second pitch he calls John Newcombe. In Cramer's opinion, Budge played the best with a closed racket; he, along with Jimmy Connors, had the best serve. He names Wilmer Ellison as the owner of the best volley with an open racket, and Budge, Frank Sedgman and Ken Rosewall with a closed racket. The candle, in Kramer's opinion, was best performed by Bobby Riggs, and the half-fly shot by Rosewall and Gonzalez. Kramer also tried to create an overall list of the best players. According to him, such a list would be topped by either Budge or Vines. Behind them he placed Tilden, Fred Perry, Riggs and Gonzalez. Also included in the list as the “second tier” were Laver, Lew Hoad, Rosewall, Gottfried von Gramm, Ted Schroeder, Jack Crawford, Pancho Segura, Sedgman, Tony Trabert, Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Bjorn Borg and Connors. Kramer also believed that the French tennis players Henri Cochet and Rene Lacoste, whose play it was difficult for him to adequately evaluate, were close in class to the players on this list.

Monica Seles uniform and racket at the International Tennis Hall of Fame

The hierarchy of amateur tennis players in the era before the advent of official rankings was maintained by the Daily Telegraph newspaper, sports journalists which has compiled lists of the top ten male amateurs since 1913, and women since 1921. These lists were later compiled in the Official Encyclopedia of Tennis, published by the United States Tennis Association in 1981, as well as in tennis encyclopedias edited by Bud Collins, who himself published similar lists since the beginning of the Open Era in the Boston Globe. The summary lists show that among men, Tilden was recognized as the best for six years and Cochet for four years, and since the mid-thirties, when there was a tendency for the strongest amateurs to move into professional tennis, few people managed to take this position more than twice. In women's amateur tennis, after Lenglen left, Helen Wills-Moody became the undisputed leader, occupying first place in the unofficial hierarchy nine times.

In 1954, James Van Alen, with the support of the United States Lawn Tennis Association, founded the National Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, a museum located on the site of the first US Tennis Championships. In 1975, the museum was named the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and the first non-American to be inducted was Fred Perry. In 1986, the International Hall of Fame was officially recognized by the International Tennis Federation. The museum contains a large number of exhibits depicting the history of the development of tennis since the 12th century, as well as a gallery of great tennis players and people who contributed to the development of this sport. By 2007, there were some 220 names on the International Tennis Hall of Fame's list, from Walter Wingfield and American tennis pioneers James White and Richard Sears to Monica Seles and Pete Sampras. In 2010, the first representative of Soviet and post-Soviet tennis became a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame - Natalya Zvereva.

For playing tennis it is called a court. It has a rectangular shape with certain parameters. The dimensions depend on its purpose. According to the rules, the game can be played in pairs or singles. In the first case, 2 teams of two people each participate, and in a single game the match is played one on one. In this regard, the parameters sports ground vary. For doubles, the dimensions of the tennis court in meters are taken to be 23.77 x 10.97 m, for singles - 23.77 x 8.23 ​​m, together with the boundary lines that are part of playing field. According to the rules, a ball that hits the marking line (except for its outer edge) is counted.

The short side of the court rectangle is limited by the back line (10 cm wide), the long side by the side line (5 cm). The middle of the playing field is a grid extending beyond its boundaries by 914 mm in both directions. Service zones are marked by internal marking lines: two service lines (parallel to the back lines) and a central service line (parallel to the side lines). The first two are marked at a distance of 640 cm from the net within the singles court, and the center line is located between them and exactly in the middle of the court. Here are the dimensions of the tennis court directly along the perimeter playground excluding races.

Outside the playing field, along the outer edge of the boundary lines, there is extra space for the convenience of moving players, called runs. Their width depends on the level of competitions that will be held on this field. For international games the width of the back run is taken to be from 6.40 to 8.20 m, and the side one - within 3.66-4.57 m. For amateur competitions: back - 5.49 m, side - 3.05 tennis court with heats folded from the sum of the parameters of the main field, taking into account the width of the runs.

The surface of a tennis court can be grass, dirt, carpet, or with a synthetic top layer based on concrete or asphalt. The surface of the playing field, as well as the dimensions of the tennis court, has great importance and has a significant impact on the quality of the game. Particular attention is paid to this issue when organizing professional competitions. For example, the prestigious Wimbledon tournament is held on grass courts. This type of surface is characterized by the fastest and at the same time the lowest rebound of the ball compared to others. The French Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments along with Wimbledon, takes place in Paris at the famous Roland Garros tennis arena, which uses a clay playing surface. . This surface provides the highest bounce of the ball, and the pace of play on a clay court is considered the slowest with long rallies.

The ancestor of modern tennis is real tennis, considered one of the oldest, appearing several centuries ago in England as royal entertainment. Real tennis still exists today, but is played indoors and has significant differences from modern look this game. The tennis court measures 29 x 9.8 m and the ball used in the game is made of cork, as opposed to the standard rubber ball used in lawn tennis.

A set of provisions regulating the game of tennis.

The game of tennis is played between two players or two pairs of players. The goal of the game is to throw the ball into the opponent's half so that he cannot return it.

Service

Putting the ball into play.

Each point starts with a serve. In this case, the server must be behind the back line of the court and strike so that the ball flies over the net without touching it, and lands within one of the two service squares on the opponent’s court.

The first serve is always made to the right of the center line. After each point, the serving player moves to the other side of the center line.

To execute a serve, the serving player is given two attempts (first and second serve).

If the ball touches the net but flies over to the opponent's side, the serve is replayed. If the ball hits the service area line or the net, the player is entitled to a second serve. If it turns out to be unsuccessful, the server is given a double fault and loses the point.

Also considered a footfault is a change in the starting position of the server while walking or running, or a foot touching the court or running outside the service zone.

Game score

Tennis scoring is carried out according to an unusual system - the first point won is valued with the number “15”, the 2nd - with the number “30”, the 3rd - with the number “40” and the 4th (decisive) - with the term game.

Points are counted “from the server”: thus, the score “15:0” means that the first serve was won by the server himself, and “0:15” by the receiver.

If each player wins 3 points in the game, the referee announces the score “exactly” and not “40:40”. A win by the server of the next point is declared as “over”, and a loss as “under”. In the event of an equalization of the score after “more” or “less”, the score is again announced “exactly”. In the case when the score is “exact”, what is important is not the number of points scored by the players, but the difference in the score. The game continues until the advantage of one of the opponents is two points, i.e. winning another point with the “over” means winning the game.

Point

The initial unit of counting, which begins with the number “15”.

4 points scored in a row wins the game. In a back-and-forth game, a 2-point lead is required to win the game.

Game (English “game”, translated from English “game”)

A unit of account of a higher order than a point.

The game involves playing at least 4 points (balls). Each game starts with a score of 0-0. If the server wins the serve, the score becomes 15-0 in favor of the server, if it loses 0-15 in favor of the receiver. The next serve results in a score of 30, then 40. The next play wins the game if the opponent has a score of 30 or less. If both players have 40, then winning the next serve gives an advantage. The player who has the advantage and wins the next serve wins the game.

Set (English “set”, translated from English “party”)

A unit of counting of a higher order than the game.

Involves winning at least 6 games with an advantage of at least 2 games. A player who wins 6 games is considered to have won the set. If the score in the set is 6-5, then another game is played. If the score becomes 7-5, the set ends. If the score becomes 6-6, then a tiebreaker is played.

Tie-break (English: “tie-break”, literally translated from English: “tie-breaker”)

The so-called shortened game, where the scoring is not carried out in the usual accepted order, but by awarding points for the balls won.

Can be played in any set (if the game count in the set is 6:6).

The serving player makes the first serve, then the opponent makes two serves, then the change goes through two serves. The first one to score 7 points with a difference of 2 points wins the tiebreaker. The tiebreaker lasts as long as necessary until a difference of two points is reached. The courts change after every 6 points.

The inventor of the tiebreaker is the American specialist James Van Alen (1903-1991). In 1970, the ITF allowed the tiebreaker system to be used in competitions for the first time as an experiment. In 1971, the tiebreaker was first used at the Wimbledon tournament, and in 1975 it was included in the official rules of world tennis.

Match

A certain number of sets (3 or 5) played to determine the winner.

The match can be 3-set or 5-set. In a 3-set game, the player who wins 2 sets wins; in a 5-set game, the player who wins 3 sets wins.

To win a doubles match, you must win two games out of three. At most singles competitions, the same rule applies, but at the most prestigious tournaments, such as tournaments in the “ Grand Slam"or "Davis Cup" - to win the match you need to win three games out of five.

Other rules

The line is considered a field.

In addition to the serve, the ball that hits the net and falls on the opponent's side is counted.

The serve must be returned only after the ball has bounced, while during the game the ball can be returned before it touches the surface of the court.

A point is not counted if the ball touches the body, is hit before it crosses the net line, or if the player touches the net or net post with a racket, hand or other part of the body.

Tennis, by definition, is a gentleman's game. Nevertheless, the tennis rules provide for the disqualification of an athlete not only for non-compliance with the rules or failure to appear for a match, but also for unethical behavior during competitions that violates the gentlemanly principle of “fair play” (lit. “playing by the rules”) . Sometimes judges have to apply this point of the rules in practice. Thus, the legendary American tennis player John McEnroe, famous not only for his powerful serves, but also for his extreme intemperance on the court, managed to “earn” disqualification twice at Grand Slam tournaments.