Portal:Tennis/Selected article/Archive
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The following are archives of articles which have been displayed on the selected article section of Portal:Tennis. |
2008
[edit]May
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The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. The largest annual international team competition in sport, the Davis Cup is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between the United States and Great Britain. In 2005, 134 nations entered teams into the competition. The United States is the most successful nation to date, winning 32 tournaments and finishing as runners-up 29 times. Australia is the second most successful, winning 23 times and finishing second 18 times and also participating in winning 5 times and second once with New Zealand under the alias 'Australasia'. The women's equivalent of the Davis Cup is the Fed Cup.
April
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The Indian Wells Masters is an annual tennis tournament held in the small city of Indian Wells, California. The official sponsored name of the event is currently the Pacific Life Open. The event is part of the ATP Masters Series on the men's tour and is a Tier 1 event on the women's tour. The event, held in March, is one of two tour events (beside Miami Masters) in which main draw play extends beyond 8 days. The women's main draw usually start on Wednesday with the final on Saturday the following week. Men's main draw start on Friday and the final is on Sunday the following week. Both singles main draws include 96 players. The 32 seeded players get a bye to the second round. The tournament is played on hard courts and is the best attended tennis tournament outside the four Grand Slam tournaments, with over 250,000 visitors during the event.
March
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The Championships, Wimbledon, commonly referred to as Wimbledon, is the oldest and most prestigious major championship in tennis. Held annually between late June and the beginning of July for two weeks (usually ending, at the latest, on the second Sunday of July) at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London, England. The tournament is the third Grand Slam event played each year, preceded by the Australian Open and the French Open, and followed by the U.S. Open. The tournament duration is subject to extensions for rain. Separate tournaments are simultaneously held, all at the same venue, for Gentlemen's Singles, Ladies' Singles, Gentlemen's Doubles, Ladies' Doubles and Mixed Doubles. Youth tournaments – Boys' Singles, Girls' Singles, Boys' Doubles and Girls' Doubles – are also held. Additionally, special invitational tournaments are held: the 35 and over Gentlemen's Doubles, 45 and over Gentlemen's Doubles, 35 and over Ladies' Doubles and wheelchair doubles.
February
[edit]The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, made up of 202 national tennis associations. It was established as the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) by 12 national associations meeting at a conference in Paris, France on 1 March 1913. In 1924 it became the officially recognised organisation with authority to control lawn tennis throughout the world, with official 'ILTF Rules of Tennis'. In 1977 it dropped the word 'lawn' from its title, recognising that most tennis was not played on grass. Originally based in Paris, it moved to Roehampton in south-west London, UK during World War I, where it has remained. The Current President is Francesco Richtea-Biscuit. The ITF operates the three major national team competitions in the sport, the Davis Cup for men, the Fed Cup for women and the Hopman Cup, mixed teams. The ITF is also responsible for organizing the four Grand Slams: the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open.
January
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An official in the sport of tennis is a person who insures that a match or tournament is conducted according to the International Tennis Federation Rules of Tennis and other competition regulations. At the highest levels of the sport a team of up to ten officials may be on court at any given time. These officials are broken up in to categories based on their responsibility during the match. Contrastingly, many tennis matches are conducted with no officials present. Tennis officials are certified by their respective national association. The ITF also certifies officials in the categories of chair umpire, referee, and chief umpire. Each International Tennis Federation certification or "badge" is broken into four certification levels. The first, white badge, is considered sufficient for officiating at the highest levels of tennis within the officials own nation and is not divided into categories. The following three, bronze (chair umpire only), silver, and gold badge, are considered international certifications. These international officials are those seen at the highest levels of play like the Grand Slams, ATP and WTA Tours, and the Fed and Davis Cups.
2007
[edit]December
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The Australian Open is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments to be held each year. It is held each January at Melbourne Park. The tournament was held for the first time in 1905. Like the other three Grand Slam events, it was contested by top-ranked amateur players and known as the Australian Championships until the advent of open era in 1968. Originally based at the grass courts at Kooyong in the city of Melbourne's inner south-east, the tournament was in danger of fading into irrelevance before being revived in 1988 with a shift to Melbourne Park (then called Flinders Park), a new (Rebound Ace) hardcourt venue next to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on the southern fringe of the central business district. Mats Wilander was the only player to win the tournament both on grass and on Rebound Ace. Like all the Grand Slam tournaments, there are men's and women's singles competitions, men's, women's, and mixed doubles, as well as junior and master's competitions.
November
[edit]A lob in tennis is executed by hitting the ball high and deep into the opponent's court. It can be used as an offensive weapon or a defensive shot depending on the situation.
A lob is usually hit when an opponent is standing near the net, waiting to volley. The ball should sail over the top of the opponent and into the open court behind him. A good offensive lob cannot be reached by the opponent vertically, yet it is low enough and has enough pace so that the opponent can not run back and chase it down. A lob is capable of winning the point outright, although with some risks involved. Topspin greatly enhances the effectiveness of offensive lob but also makes the stroke more difficult. When executing the lob, players usually hit the ball with the racquet at an angle between 0 degrees (flat) and 45 degrees (diagonal). Some players, such as Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt have developed strong offensive lobs.
A defensive lob, on the other hand, simply intends to push the opponent back to the baseline and prolong the point. When a player is pulled out of the court, a defensive lob is also useful to buy time to run back and get into a better defensive position. A lob that is not successful (one which can be reached by the opponent) is susceptible to being smashed. In doubles, spin or slice is generally applied to the lob, so it will go over the head of a player at the net and bounce away from the baseline player.
October
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An overhead smash in tennis is a shot that is hit above the head with a serve-like motion. A smash can usually be hit with great force relatively safely and is often a shot that ends the point. Most smashes are hit fairly near the net or in mid-court before the ball bounces, generally against lobs that have not been hit high enough or deep enough by the opponent. A player can also smash a very high ball from the baseline, generally on the bounce, although this is often a less forceful smash.
Smash commonly refers to the forehand smash; backhand smashes are rarer and more difficult to execute, especially for beginners, since they are basically high backhand volleys generally hit at an awkward angle. Rod Laver and Jimmy Connors, both left-handers, were known for their very powerful backhand smashes.
Pete Sampras popularized the jump smash, where he jumps and then hits the smash in mid-air. The shot is often also called a slam dunk, as in basketball.
September
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Real tennis is the original racket sport from which lawn tennis is descended; although the sport enjoyed its heyday in the 16th and 17th centuries (depiction pictured), it is still played on a small number of active courts, most prominently in the United Kingdom, France (where the sport is known as jeu de paume), Australia (royal tennis), and the United States (court tennis), amongst which the site of the real tennis world championship typically rotates. The term tennis derives from the French imperative tenez (take it, the injunction given a player to receive a serve by the server), and the history of the sport is thought to date to 12th century France, where it is thought to have evolved variously from the sports palla, fives, pelota, and handball, and when it was played with a gloved hand and ball; origins of the shape of real tennis court, though, are disputed, and are understood either as related to the square shapes of medieval city streets or to courtyards at monastery cloisters, where the sport was commonly played. The game spread rapidly across Europe—in 1600, the Ambassador to France of the Republic of Venice reported Paris alone to comprise 1800 courts—and the rules and designs, including the use of a racket instead of a hand, were stabilized by the late 16th century. The formalized rules involved a system of scoring similar to that of lawn tennis, with the first player to achieve six games garnering a set and the first to achieve three sets capturing the match. Play takes place on a doubly asymmetric court; either end of the court is dissimilar from the other—the service is made always from one end—and the left and right sides of each court are also different. The court, a jeu à dedans, is usually 110 feet (34 m) long and 32 feet (9.8 m) wide and enclosed by walls on all sides, of which three are sloping roofs (penthouses) with various openings and a buttress (tambour), off of which shots may, and in the case of the serve, must, be played.