Tennis scoreboard with live points, games and sets

Modern tennis rackets are built from graphite and carbon-fibre composites, replacing the wood and early metal frames of the past. Head size (around 95 to 110 square inches), weight, balance and stiffness all shape how a racket plays, and the ITF caps the overall length at 29 inches (73.7 cm). Leading brands include Wilson, Babolat, Head, Yonex and Prince, each associated with different styles of play — from control-oriented player's frames to power-and-spin models favoured by the modern baseline game.

Tennis balls have a pressurised rubber core covered in a felt cloth of wool and nylon, and they must be ITF-approved for sanctioned play. The optic-yellow colour, standard since 1986, was chosen for television visibility. Regulation balls measure about 6.5 to 6.9 cm in diameter and weigh 56 to 59.4 grams. Different ball types suit different surfaces and altitudes, and pressurised balls lose their bounce over time — which is why fresh cans are opened for matches. Wilson, Slazenger, Dunlop, Penn and Head are among the major makers, with Slazenger the historic ball of Wimbledon.

Strings are where much of a racket's feel is decided. Polyester and co-poly strings are durable and generate the heavy topspin that defines the modern game, while natural gut offers unmatched comfort and power at a higher price. Many players use a hybrid — one material on the mains, another on the crosses — and tune string tension to trade control against power. String choice and tension are as personal to a player as the frame itself, and even a few pounds of tension can change how a racket responds.

Tennis demands quick starts, hard stops and constant lateral movement, so proper court shoes matter. Outsoles are surface-specific: a herringbone pattern grips and slides on clay, while non-marking, durable soles suit hard and grass courts. Good tennis shoes add lateral support and cushioning that running shoes lack, protecting ankles and knees over long matches. Reinforced toes help players who drag the back foot on serve. Most major sportswear brands produce dedicated tennis lines built for the sport's stop-start movement.

A tennis court is 78 feet long and 27 feet wide for singles (23.77 x 8.23 m), widening to 36 feet (10.97 m) for doubles, with a net 3 feet (0.914 m) high at the centre. The surface shapes the game: hard courts (Australian Open, US Open) offer a medium, consistent bounce; clay (Roland Garros) is slow and high-bouncing, rewarding stamina and topspin; and grass (Wimbledon) is fast and low, favouring the serve. Playing across all three is what makes a complete champion.

Modern tennis descends from real tennis, the medieval indoor game played in European courts for centuries. The outdoor lawn version took shape in 1870s England. In 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield published the rules of a portable court game he called Sphairistike and patented it the following year, marketing boxed sets of net, rackets and rubber balls to country houses.

The game spread fast, but Wingfield's hourglass-shaped court and quirky rules did not last. The All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon staged the first Championships in 1877, and its committee standardised the rectangular court, the net height and the 15-30-40 scoring borrowed from real tennis. Those 1877 decisions are, in their essentials, still the rules played today.

For most of the 20th century the four major championships were closed to professionals — only amateurs could enter, while the best players who turned pro were barred from Wimbledon and the national championships. The split hollowed out the sport's showcase events and pushed its stars onto barnstorming pro tours.

That ended in 1968, when the majors opened to professionals and the Open Era began. Prize money, ranking systems and a genuine world tour followed within a few years. The men's ATP was founded in 1972 and the women's WTA in 1973, giving players a collective voice and turning tennis into the year-round global circuit recognisable today.

Tennis had a clock problem in reverse: sets could stretch endlessly. In 1970, Jimmy Van Alen's tiebreak was adopted to cap a set at 6-6, and it quickly became standard across the tour. The innovation made match lengths broadcast-friendly and gave crowds a clean climax to every close set.

Two other shifts defined the era. Tennis returned to the Olympic programme as a full medal sport at Seoul 1988, adding national pride to the calendar. And the fight for equal prize money, which the US Open was first to pay in 1973, ran its course until all four Grand Slams paid men and women equally by 2007. Meanwhile the surfaces settled into the modern mix — hard, clay and grass — each rewarding a different kind of player.

The 2000s and 2010s belonged to an extraordinary cluster of champions. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — the so-called Big Three — traded Grand Slam titles for two decades and pushed the men's game to a level many thought impossible. On the women's side, Serena Williams built one of sport's great careers with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, following the earlier dominance of Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova.

With Federer and Nadal now retired and Djokovic in his late career, a new generation has taken over. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz split the 2025 Grand Slams between them, while Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Świątek and Coco Gauff lead the women's game. The transition has been smoother — and faster — than the sport dared hope.