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Tennis is one of the most popular individual sports in the world. Players uses a racquet to hit a felt covered rubber ball over a net into the opponents court. The ball must be kept in play and can only bounce once before the opponent must strike the ball back over the net. The game is either played individually (singles) or with a partner (doubles).

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The origin of tennis traces back to 12th century France. Louis X of France used to play a game in which it later evolved to Real Tennis. The modern tennis, which we call, lawn tennis, originated in Birmingham, England.

Tennis may be played indoor or outdoors, the common surfaces are hardcourt, grass and clay. The standard size of a tennis court is 23.77 meters x 8.23 meters for singles, and 23.77 meters x 10.97 meters for doubles.

Other Tennis Type Sports

• Real Tennis — the sport from which modern lawn tennis was derived. It is played in an indoor court of asymmetric dimensions, using rules and scoring similar to those of modern tennis.
• Wheelchair Tennis — a version of lawn tennis for those who have lower body disabilities.
• Jeu de Paume — originally played with the hand, the precursor to real tennis and modern lawn tennis (essentially extinct)
• Longue Paume — an outdoor version of jeu de paume, played without a net
• Soft Tennis — a version of the game of tennis played primarily in Asia, very similar except they play with soft balls.
• Beach Tennis- a sport which has elements from tennis and volleyball, and played on the beach
• Paddle Tennis — a variation of tennis on a smaller court, lower net, using a solid paddle and ball.
• Road Tennis — a version of tennis played on a smaller court with paddles and a low wooden net.
• Padel Tennis — a mix of tennis and squash, played on a much smaller court with walls and a solid paddle racket.
• Stické Tennis — an indoor racquet and ball based sport derived from lawn tennis in the late 19th century, using a smaller court surrounded by 4 walls.
• Platform Tennis — a variation of tennis with modified equipment on a much smaller court surrounded on all sides by a fence.
• Table Tennis — a racket sport played with small paddles and a lightweight ball on a rectangular table with a net in the middle.
• Tennis Polo — an outdoor team sport, where players attempt to throw a tennis ball through a goal defended by a goal keeper with a tennis racket.
• International Game — a team sport played by striking a ball with hands, created so that players from similar handball sports could play against each other.
• Racketlon — a combination sport, where players compete in the sports of table tennis, tennis, squash, and badminton
• Matkot — a sport that is very similar to beach tennis.
• Tennikoit (also called Ring Tennis) — played with a rubber ring, in which the objective is to catch and throw the ring back onto the opponent's half of the court.
• Speed-Ball — an Egyptian racquet sport where player hit a ball suspended from a central pole. Like the kids game of totem tennis.
• Qianball — a racket and ball sport developed in China which can be best described as a mix of aspects from tennis and squash.
• Palla — a traditional street game played in villages of Italy.

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Related Pages

• Tennis at the Olympics
• Tennis Grand Slam Events
• Unusual sport of two-handed tennis
• List of Racket Sports
• Complete list of sports
• The Encyclopedia of Sports