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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. The hourglass shape, stipulated by Wingfield in his booklet "Sphairistiké, 🧲 or Lawn Tennis," may have been adopted for patent reasons since it distinguished the court from ordinary rectangular courts. At the 🧲 time, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was the governing body of real tennis, whose rules it had recently revised.After J.M. |