Evolution Of Tennis Research Paper

The Evolution Of Tennis When most unknowing people hear the word “tennis” they think of old people hitting a ball over a net in shorts with wooden racquets, a common stereotype among today’s youth. Not many think of the image of Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer, both outstanding players, violently hitting and running across the court to cover the ball. Of course, the era of wooden racquets was not too long ago. However, the truth is that the sport of tennis has greatly revolutionized due to new racquet technology, new advanced tennis balls, more spin, and stronger, taller, and fitter generations. To begin, racquet technology has overall been the greatest change over the past 50 years. In the 1920’s people were still using wooden racquets, and

This racquet was first introduced in 1977 by a man named Werner Fisher. These racquets had only five main strings, however, it had two sets of them, one on the back side and one on the front. The main and cross strings were not interwoven in this racquet, and all of the main strings of the racquet were tied together so that they moved in unison. All of these things reduced the lateral friction causing double the amount of normal topsin. Players were able to hit harder, for the spin would drag the ball down into the court and then bounce high above the opponent causing unnatural hitting positions. Within one year this masterpiece was banned in

First off, in the fifteenth century tennis balls were made of leather stuffed with hair or wool, and then in the eighteenth century people started using wool that was wound tight around a center cork. These types of balls are still used in “Real Tennis” today, which is a different type of lawn tennis. In the 1870’s vulcanized rubber was used instead of leather or wool, and the same year tennis balls began to become pressurized which gave them a better bounce. Originally, tennis balls were not completely spherical, however, the game soon demanded better uniformity of tennis balls, so new techniques were introduced which led to modern day tennis balls. The new technique involved creating two half shells compressed and assembled together to make a core. Flannel quickly replaced melton cloth, and stitching was replaced by a vulcanized rubber seal. Balls were usually black or white, but in 1972 the ITF (international tennis federation) introduced yellow balls because players were having a hard time seeing the original black and white balls. In 1989 high altitude tennis balls were introduced to counter the air pressure at high altitudes, so the balls bounce the same as if in lower altitude. In 2002 type 3 (slow) and type 1 (fast) tennis balls were introduced into pro rules to establish a foundation for future tennis