Essay Example: Tennis Is My Favourite Sport

I am a very big sports fan. I enjoy all kinds of sports be it soccer, track sports, football, swimming, horse racing and so on. However, my single favorite sport is tennis. I became hooked to tennis in 2004 when I saw Roger Federer on TV playing in Wimbledon. I was instantly attracted to the sport- the serves, the volleys, the rush, the swings, the overall exhilaration- I had found my favorite sport and even though I enjoy any kind of sport at any given day no other sport gets my nerves jangling like tennis does. Originally tennis as we know today started in England in the 1800s even though there is historical evidence that it started out centuries earlier; rudimentary form of the sport was being played in Europe during the middle ages. In twelfth century France, the medieval form of the sport was played and it involved striking the ball with the palm of the hand. The term tennis originates from the French word tenez which means take, hold or receive.

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Modern professional tennis is a prestigious racket and ball sport played widely across the globe. Tennis is played on four distinct different surfaces which are grass, carpet, hard surface and clay. Every tournament chooses what type of surface to use and sticks with it all through the entirety of the tournament. Tennis has four leading tournaments annually called the Grand Slams or majors and they include the US Open, the Australian Majors, the French Open and more famous of all the Wimbledon Tournament. The Grand Slams are the only tennis tournaments that feature mixed-doubles matches among the world tour events.

A singles tennis court is a sport played across a rectangular court, seventy eight feet in length by twenty seven feet in width, separated at the middle across its length by a net three feet high starting on the ground level. A tennis court has a baseline which is at the back, two service areas where a good serve must land and two tramlines on either side of the court. A singles is played within the tramlines while a doubles match requires the players to use the outer tramline. Two tennis courts side by side have to be separated by a distance of a minimum of twelve feet and the court should be twelve feet away from sidestop and twenty one feet away from backstop. A doubles tennis court is thirty six feet in width.

Tennis is quite an easy sport to play even for amateurs. Tennis can be played with either one player on one side of the net or two players depending on whether the match is a singles or a doubles match respectively. For any tennis match to start the players each must have at least one stringed racket and at least one tennis ball. At the beginning of the match a coin is tossed to determine which player starts the game with a serve and he or she picks his preferred side. The server then proceeds to serve each point from alternative sides of the baseline. The first server has an advantage of a second serve if they get the first one wrong, however if they get the second serve wrong again then they lose a point due to the double fault.

A point is scored every time a player hits the ball over the net and the opponent is unable to return the serve. For a winner to be determined in a tennis match, he or she must accumulate four points. One point is termed 15, two is 30 and three is 40. The fourth point once gained by one player or team then the game ends. There are instances when the score is 40-40, when this happens this situation is referred to as a deuce. If a game comes to a deuce then the game is played out for as long a time as it takes for a player or team to win by two distinct points. A winner must win 3 out of 5 sites for a womens match and 5 out of 7 for a mens match. If an opponent wins three games then you must win five to win and the score comes to a 5-2. Tennis is a very enjoyable sport. Anybody starting out on tennis does not even have to know the rules to enjoy the game. Just pick up the racket, serve the ball and start swinging.