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.