Tennis-Storehouse gear & accessories

A majority of historians believe the origins of the game came from 11th or 12th century monks in France. They apparently started playing with their bare hands against stone walls. Le jeu de paume was born (it means "game of the palm (hand)").

Other people argue it could all come from the French verb "Tenir" as in "tenez" which is something you would tell your opponent before serving the ball to him, a very gentlemanly behavior indeed :)

It then became more and more popular, the monks started to use gloves to make the game more interesting. This is arguably the first innovation in the sport, using gloves probably meant you could hit the ball harder without actually hurting your bare hands!

Then came along the first racquet in the shape of a sort of bat with a basket made of strings/net that would allow players to throw the ball even faster against the wall.

I, myself, remember playing hand-ball with a tennis ball against a school wall in the playground area when I was 10 o 11 years old. At that time I had already started playing tennis and we were either playing one to one or in groups of players hitting the ball once and going in circles allowing for every single kid to hit the ball and have a rotation, the group would then diminish as players missed their hits .. the last one staning was of course the winner of the game.

I'll try and update this part as I go along to provide a bit more information on 'Tennis' :)

Photo from AbsoluteAstronomy