With Wimbledon almost upon us, I’ve been thinking about who might have invented the game.
Like so many innovations, it seems to have emerged in two different places at much the same time.
On a croquet lawn in Birmingham, an Englishman, Major Harry Gem, and his Spanish friend, Augurio Perera, started playing a game that combined rackets with the Basque game, pelota. In 1872 they founded the first tennis club at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.
And in 1874 Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, a Welshman, invented a game with similar characteristics that he called “sphairistike” – from the Greek meaning skill at playing ball. He actually patented the net.
Why is it that inventions and discoveries so often appear in parallel?
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