Tennis: A History from American Amateurs to Global Professionals
Greg Ruth
Aug 2021 · University of Illinois Press
eBook
368
Pages
Free Sample
About this eBook
Analyzing how tennis turned pro
The arrival of the Open era in 1968 was a watershed in the history of tennis--the year that marked its advent as a professionalized sport. Merging wide-angle history with individual stories of players and off-the-court figures, Greg Ruth charts tennis’s evolution into the game we watch today. His vivid account moves from the cloistered world of nineteenth-century lawn tennis through the longtime amateur-professional divide and the battles over commercialization that raged from the 1920s until 1968. From there, Ruth details the post-1968 expansion of the game as it was transformed by bankable superstars, a popular women’s tour, rival governing bodies, and sponsorship money. What emerges is a fascinating history of the economics and politics that made tennis a decisive, if unlikely, force in the creation of modern-day sports entertainment.
Comprehensive and engaging, Tennis tells the interlocking stories of the figures and factors that birthed the professional game.
History
About the author
Greg Ruth is an independent scholar.
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