The Wimbledon Championships, commonly called Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, since 1877 and is played on outdoor grass courts, with retractable roofs over the two main courts since 2019.
Real tennis – one of several games sometimes called "the sport of kings" – is the original racquet sport from which the modern game of tennis is derived. It is also known as court tennis in the United States, royal tennis in England and Australia, and courte-paume in France. Many French real tennis courts are at jeu de paume clubs.
Jeu de paume was an event contested at the 1908 Summer Olympics, the only time the Summer Olympic Games featured the sport as a medal event.
Six tennis events were contested at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. Indoor tennis events, on what were officially called 'covered courts', were held for the first time, along with the usual outdoor events. Women's events were contested, with women's singles and indoor women's singles. The indoor events were held at the covered courts of the Queen's Club and began on 6 May 1908, ahead of the official start of the Games while the outdoor tournament was played on grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club at Worple Road from 6 July through 11 July 1908. In total 50 players, 40 men and 10 women, competed. Five nations made their tennis debuts, while five more returned to competition for a total of ten nations. Two players, Les Poidevin and Wimbledon champion Anthony Wilding were nominated for Australasia but through administrative bungling they were not entered.
The Queen's Club Championships is an annual tournament for men's tennis, held on grass courts at the Queen's Club in West Kensington, London. The event is part of the ATP Tour 500 series on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour. It is currently advertised as the "cinch Championships" after its title sponsor.
The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is the national governing body of tennis in Great Britain, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man founded in 1888. The LTA promotes all levels of lawn tennis. The organization believes tennis can provide "physical, social, and mental rewards both on and off the court." The National Tennis Centre (NTC) in Roehampton, southwest London, serves as its main training facility. The Princess of Wales has been an LTA patron since 2017. Its first president was seven-time Wimbledon champion William Renshaw.
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC), also known as the All England Club, based at Church Road, Wimbledon, London, England, is a private members' club. It is best known as the venue for the Wimbledon Championships, the only Grand Slam tennis event still held on grass. Initially an amateur event that occupied club members and their friends for a few days each summer, the championships have become far more prominent than the club itself. However, it still operates as a members' tennis club.
Holcombe Ward was an American tennis player who was active during the last years of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. He won the U.S. National Championships singles title in 1904 and additionally won six doubles titles at the Grand Slam event.
The United Kingdom's National Tennis Centre at Roehampton in south-west London is the high-performance training facility of the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). It was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 29 March 2007. The Chief Executive of the centre is Roger Draper.
The Prince's Club was a socially exclusive gentlemen's multisports club in London, England. The original 'Prince's Club' was founded in 1853 in Chelsea by George and James Prince and its main sports were rackets and real tennis. Cricket, croquet and lawn tennis were also played. After most of its ground was lost to building developments it closed in 1887. Its successor, the 'New Prince's Club', located in Knightsbridge, opened in 1888 and kept its focus on rackets and real tennis, but no longer had any outdoor sports. In 1896 the Prince's Skating Club was opened. The Prince's Club was in operation until the 1940s.
The Eastbourne International is a tennis tournament on the WTA Tour and the ATP Tour held at the Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club, Eastbourne, United Kingdom. Held since 1974, it is classified as a WTA 500 series on the WTA Tour and an ATP Tour 250 series on the ATP Tour. The tournament is played on outdoor grass courts, and is generally considered a "warm-up" for the Wimbledon Championships, a major tournament, which begins the following week. It was originally just part of the WTA Tour, but from 2009 it was combined as an ATP Tour event. It replaced the Nottingham Open grass court tournament from 2009–2014. Nottingham returned for 2015–2016 with no men's event in Eastbourne, however Eastbourne replaced the Nottingham event again from 2017 onwards. As of 2022, it is sponsored by Rothesay, with past sponsors including Viking Cruises, Nature Valley and AEGON.
The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis, invented in Edgbaston, Warwickshire, England, now commonly known simply as tennis, is the direct descendant of what is now denoted real tennis or royal tennis, which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules.
The 1877 Wimbledon Championship was a men's tennis tournament held at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London. It was the world's first official lawn tennis tournament, and was later recognised as the first Grand Slam tournament or "Major". The AEC & LTC had been founded in July 1868, as the All England Croquet Club. Lawn tennis was introduced in February 1875 to compensate for the waning interest in croquet. In June 1877 the club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, needed to maintain the lawns. A set of rules was drawn up for the tournament, derived from the first standardised rules of tennis issued by the Marylebone Cricket Club in May 1875.
The Manchester Open previously known as the Northern Lawn Tennis Championships, the Northern Championships, the Northern Tennis Tournament and the Manchester Trophy was a grass court tennis tournament on the ATP Tour held at the Northern Lawn Tennis Club, in the Didsbury suburb of Manchester, Great Britain. The tournament had been held annually from 1880 to 2009.
John Edward Barrett, is a former tennis player, television commentator and author. He was born in Mill Hill, North West London, the son of Alfred Edward Barrett, a leaf tobacco merchant, and Margaret Helen Barrett. He had one sister, Irene Margaret Leppington (1925–2009), a research chemist. His father had the rare distinction of having played both for Leicester Tigers RFC as a wing three-quarter and for Leicester Fosse FC as a wing half.
The Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club is a tennis complex in Eastbourne, United Kingdom. The complex is the host of the annual ATP and WTA Tour tournament called the Eastbourne International. The stadium court has a capacity of 8,000 people. The Devonshire Park, originally intended as a cricket ground, opened its gates to the public on 1 July 1874 and in 1879, the first tennis courts was marked out on its lawns. In 1877 the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club set about regularising the laws of lawn tennis and produced its first tournament at Wimbledon running from July 9–16 of that year. In 1881 the club staged the inaugural South of England Championships, the event was played annually for 136 years until 1972.
Margaret “Peggy” Amy Michell was a British female tennis player active in the 1920s. She is also known under her married name, Peggy Saunders-Michell.
Irene Evelyn Bowder Peacock was a South African tennis player.
Ryan Peniston is a British tennis player from Essex. He has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 123, achieved in July 2022, and a doubles ranking of world No. 384 achieved in June 2022.
Léa van der Zwalmen is a French rackets and real tennis player and the current rackets World Champion. She is undefeated in rackets since the inaugural Ladies World Championship in 2015. In real tennis, she represents the Jeu de Paume de Bordeaux in Mérignac, Bordeaux and is women's world number 2. She has contested two World Championship singles finals and has won one Open doubles title. She has previously represented France in junior squash and also plays padel tennis.
