There has been much dispute over the invention of modern tennis, but the officially recognized centennial of the game in 🤑 1973 commemorated its introduction by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield in 1873.
He published the first book of rules that year and 🤑 took out a patent on his game in 1874, although historians have concluded that similar games were played earlier and 🤑 that the first tennis club was established by the Englishman Harry Gem and several associates in Leamington in 1872.
Wingfield's court 🤑 was of the hourglass shape and may have developed from badminton.