Game and Entertainment

  Wimbledon: The 2009 Official Film Serena Williams won her fifth Australian Open championship on Saturday in a three-set thriller. This showcased her big serve, her ballistic forehand and most of all an unquenchable will to win that she needed every bit of to turn back Justine Henin, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. It was a 12th Grand Slam title for Williams. Serena Williams Tennis Framed 8x10 Photograph 2007 Australian Open Final Trophy “I’d like to congratulate Justine for having a fabulous tournament. She gave me all I could handle tonight,” said Williams, who won her previous four titles here in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009. Justine Henin Framed Autographed/Hand Signed Tennis Ball Shadowbox The last time a women’s Grand Slam went three sets was at Wimbledon in 2006, when Henin lost to Amelie Mauresmo. Over a two-hour-and-seven-minute match, Henin’s shot making and grit often matched that of Williams, especially in a furious second set and the opening of the third – a span in which she won f...

Tennis as the modern sport can be dated to two separate roots. Between 1859 and 1865, Major Harry Gem and his friend Augurio Perera developed a game that combined elements of rackets and the Basque ball game pelota, which they played on Perera's croquet lawn in Birmingham, United Kingdom. In 1872, along with two local doctors, they founded the world's first tennis club in Leamington Spa. The Courier of July 23, 1884 recorded one of the first tennis tournaments, held in the grounds of Shrubland Hall. In December 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designed a similar game — which he called sphairistike (Greek: σφάίρίστική, meaning "skill at playing at ball"), and was soon known simply as "sticky" — for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales. He based the game on the newer sport of outdoor tennis or real tennis. According to most tennis historians, modern tennis terminology also derives from this period, ...