Tennis is a sport which is characterized by its beauty and spectacular features. Tennis players have gracious moves and move around maintaining a certain rhythm and all these moves are also very exact, although tennis players are bound to make a great deal of effort. The great attractiveness of this sport lies in the fact that it doesn’t matter how old you are if you want to play it. You can choose to play tennis according to your preferences and to your training level. You just have to be responsive, courageous, skillful, strong, fast and to have good reflexes.
According to a lot of opinions, this sport appeared in the twelfth century. It is said that the first ones to ever play tennis were the royal families in England and France. This sport was spread once the vulcanized rubber appeared, this kind of rubber allowing the ball to be more elastic and to keep the court in a good shape.
1870 brought the tennis we are all accustomed to nowadays, this sport being called “lawn tennis”. The sport was given this title so that it could be differentiated from the “jeu de palme” the French invented. The word “tennis” comes from “tenez”, this being the call players made when they served or sent the ball to their opponents. Tennis has also been called “the white sport” as all the tennis players had to wear white clothes when they played. However, the colorful pieces of equipment were also allowed after 1968. In fact, this has turned out to be a very good idea as the TV transmissions were better, too.
When it comes the equipment tennis players can choose, there are certain regulations, but there are also choices they can make on their own. For instance, the rackets can be between 63.5 and 69 centimeters long and they should weigh somewhere around four hundred grams, but there are certain versions tennis players can choose. The net is usually made of nylon or string, the rings being very small and there being a white and which separates the sides and the top margin. The central height for the net is of 0.91 meters.
There are single tennis matches and double ones. The ball is sent in the opponent’s area and if they don’t return it according to the rules, you win a point. The points are noted with 15, 30 and 40 and once you have a deuce at 40, you move on to advantages, which forces you to win two points in a row. The winner of the set is the one who wins six games. If both of the players win six games, they go to tie break, where they play until one of them wins seven points. Usually, you have to win two sets out of three in a competition, but there are also other competitions with which you have to win three sets out of five.
If you are a fan of tennis, you can sing up with a tennis club and get your own pieces of equipment, this being a sport which allows you to make a lot of money if you are really good.