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Culture and Recreation

Sports

How old is tennis?

The game is believed to have originated in France, where it was called jeu de paume (meaning “game of the palm”) in the 1100s or 1200s: Players hit a small ball back and forth over a net using the palms of their hands. The “father of modern tennis” is English soldier and sportsman Walter Clopton Wingfield (known as Major Wingfield [1833–1912]), who in 1873 published a rule book for lawn tennis and in 1874 patented equipment for the game.