About the Author

Heiner Gillmeister is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bonn and is a world authority on the history of ball games.

Reviews

"A definitive account of tennis a splayed from the Middle Ages to the present... will sate the curiosity of the most avid tennis enthusiast." -Publishers Weekly

" . . . the book is exemplary, and the scholarship particularly of the first five chapters sets a high standard for the history of any sport." -American Studies International

"Extraordinary"-The Economist

"Well Researched... [Gillmeister] keeps a light tone even when vilifying minute details like the physical layout of Henry V's tennis court." -Library Journal

First published in Germany in 1990, this detailed history has been translated by its author, a professor of medieval English at the University of Bonn. The work offers a definitive account of tennis as played from the Middle Ages to the present. In the first five of nine chapters, Gillmeister treats the origins of the game, probably an offshoot of the French jeu de paumes, a kind of handball. He also traces the etymology of the word tennis (from French tenez!, which means "stick with it,"he concludes) and such terms as advantage and deuce, both from the late 16th century, adding the surprise that the wordsmiths who derive love from l'oeuf (egg) cannot be right. The last four chapters trace the development of lawn tennis, begun in the 1870s in England then exported to France, the U.S. and Germany. This rambling encyclopedic tome with its 120 b&w photos and 16 pages of color prints will sate the curiosity of the most avid tennis enthusiast. (Oct.)

"A definitive account of tennis a splayed from the Middle Ages to the present... will sate the curiosity of the most avid tennis enthusiast."

" . . . the book is exemplary, and the scholarship particularly of the first five chapters sets a high standard for the history of any sport."

"Extraordinary"

"Well Researched... [Gillmeister] keeps a light tone even when vilifying minute details like the physical layout of Henry V's tennis court."