We could today be playing tennis on an hourglass-shaped court with a net set at more than a foot higher than the current height if the plans of a Victorian entrepreneur credited with popularizing tennis had become widely adopted.
Tennis is an ancient sport that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and was played among several cultures for centuries using a lot of different formats.
However, in 1874 Britain’s Queen Victoria granted a patent for tennis, or at least a version of it, to an enterprising fellow named Major Walter Clopton Wingfield. The patent was actually for ‘a new and improved portable court for playing the ancient game of tennis’.
The availability of vulcanised rubber balls had made it possible to play tennis outdoors rather than on the enclosed courts used by real tennis. The court that received the patent was shaped like an hourglass and featured a net that was a whopping 4 feet 8 inches high (the present net height used is 3 feet 6 inches). Clopton Wingfield called the game Sphairistike (which is Greek for resembling a sphere) or lawn tennis.
The patent expired in 1877, but Clopton Wingfield did much to widely popularize tennis as he packaged sets of all the equipment needed to play tennis, including the gear and the plans needed to mark out the hourglass court, and had some commercial success.
The package also included instructions on how to play the game, which included having to serve into the area beyond the service line rather than into it, which was probably wise considering the height of the net.
Perhaps prompted by this move, the Marylebone Cricket Club sought to codify the rules of tennis, including a rectangular court, and in 1875 set out the official Rules of Tennis, which have stayed in force ever since, with some changes such as tie breaks, etc.
By 1877, when the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club held its first Wimbledon Tennis Championships, the sport had overtaken the previously pre-eminent outdoor pastimes of croquet and badminton and also started to spread internationally.
Many might not now know the name of Walter Clopton Wingfield but in many ways he can be considered to be the father of modern tennis.