遡って、1868年7月23日にAll England Croquet Clubというクロッケーの協会が設立された。クロッケーはイギリス発祥のゲートボールのような競技 (これもオリンピック競技の廃止競技として記している) で、1870年に大会を開催したりしたが、競技が物静かであったために人気が衰退していった。
1875年2月、All England Croquet Clubはスポーツライターのヘンリー・ジョーンズの提案によりローンテニスを導入することが決まり、徐々に重きが置かれていった。そして協会は1877年4月14日に、All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club (AEC & LTC) と名称が変更された。
再び遡って1875年3月3日にMarylebone Cricket Club (MCC) は、クリケットフィールドでローンテニスの様々な形をテストする会合を開き、ローンテニスのルール標準化を模索した。そして6月24日に最初のローンテニスのルールが制定された。これは主にウィングフィールド少佐によるスフェリスティキのルールを元としており、蝶ネクタイ型のコートが採用された。しかしこのコートの形は多くに支持されたわけではなかった。
- The court will have a rectangular shape with outer dimensions of 78 by 27 feet (23.77 by 8.23 m).
- The net will be lowered to 3 feet and 3 inches (0.99 m) in the center.
- The balls will be 2 1/2 to 2 5/8 inch (6.4 to 6.7 cm) in diameter and 1 3/4 ounces (49.6 g) in weight.
- The real tennis method of scoring by fifteens will be adopted.
- The first player to win six games wins the set with 'sudden death' occurring at five games all except for the final, when a lead of two games in each set is necessary.
- Players will change ends at the end of a set unless otherwise decreed by the umpire.
- The server will have two chances at each point to deliver a correct service.
このような経緯でローンテニスコートは、蝶ネクタイ型ではなく78 x 27 feetの長方形となった。またこれらはいくつかの修正はなされたが今日のテニスでも有効なものである。
そして6月9日に以下のような公告がされた。
The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, propose to hold a lawn tennis meeting, open to all amateurs, on Monday, July 9th and following days. Entrance fee, ￡1 1s 0d. Names and addresses of competitors to be forwarded to the Hon. Sec. A.E.C. and L.T.C. before Saturday, July 7, or on that day before 2.15 p.m. at the club ground, Wimbledon. Two prices will be given - one gold champion prize to the winner, one silver to the second player. The value of the prizes will depend on the number of entries, and will be declared before the draw; but in no case will they be less than the amount of the entrance money, and if there are ten and less than sixteen entries, they will be made up to ￡10 10s and ￡5 5s respectively. Henry Jones - Hon Sec of the Lawn Tennis sub-committee
１回戦、２回戦、準々決勝、準決勝を経て、7月19日に約200名の観衆の前でスペンサー・ゴアとウィリアム・マーシャルによる決勝が行われ、6-1、6-2、6-4でスペンサー・ゴアが勝利をおさめた。
翌日のThe Morning Post紙は以下のように報じている。
Lawn Tennis Championship - A fair number of spectators assembled yesterday, notwithstanding the rain, on the beautifully kept ground of the All England Club, Wimbledon, to witness the final contest between Messrs. Spencer Gore and W. Marshall for the championship. The play on both sides was of the highest order and its exhibition afforded a great treat to lovers of the game. All three sets were won buy Mr. Gore, who, therefore, becomes lawn tennis champion for 1877, and wins the ￡12 12s. gold prize and holds the silver challenge cup, value ￡25 5s.
Jahangir Khan (born 10 December 1963, in Karachi, Pakistan) is a former World No. 1 professional squash player from Pakistan, who is considered by many to be the greatest player in the history of the game. During his career he won the World Open six times and the British Open a record ten times. From 1981 to 1986, he was unbeaten in competitive play. During that time he won 555 games consecutively, the longest winning streak by any athlete in top-level professional sports as recorded by Guinness World Records.He retired as a player in 1993, and has served as President of the World Squash Federation since 2002.
In 1981, when he was 17, Jahangir became the youngest winner of the World Open. That tournament marked the start of an unbeaten run which lasted for five years and 555 matches. The hallmark of his play was his incredible fitness and stamina. Jahangir was quite simply the fittest player in the game, and would wear his opponents down through long rallies played at a furious pace.
In 1982, Jahangir astonished everyone by winning the International Squash Players Association Championship without losing a single point.
The unbeaten run finally came to end in the final of the World Open in 1986 in Toulouse, France, when Jahangir lost to New Zealand's Ross Norman. Norman had been in pursuit of Jahangir's unbeaten streak, being beaten time and time again. "One day Jahangir will be slightly off his game and I will get him", he vowed for five years.
British Openは1930年に始まったスカッシュで最も権威のある選手権だが、ジャハーンギール・カーンは1982年～91年まで10連覇している。1991年の決勝の映像が見つかった。
On 2 October 1900, twelve gentlemen gathered to play 36 holes of golf at the Compiègne Club, about 30 miles north of Paris. Though only a few of them may have realized it at the time, they were the participants in the first Olympic golf tournament.
There were two golf events in 1900 - one for gentlemen and one for ladies, using the vernacular of the time. Charles Sands, of the St. Andrews Golf Club in Yonkers, New York, played the Compiègne course in rounds of 82-85 to win the gentlemen’s event by one shot over Walter Rutherford of Jedburgh, Scotland.
The next day, the ladies’ event took place and was won by Margaret Abbott of the Chicago Golf Club, who played her requisite nine holes in 47 strokes.
A third competition was held on the final day. However, this was a handicap event for men, and cannot be considered of Olympic caliber.
Charles Sandsは7月に行われたオリンピックのテニス競技にも参加しており(パリオリンピックは開幕が5月14日、閉幕が10月28日)、シングル、ダブルス、混合ダブルスともに初戦敗退だった。さらに1908年のロンドンオリンピックでもジュ・ド・ポーム(インドアテニス)に参加し、これまた初戦敗退だった。このようにオリンピックでは振るわなかったもののCharles Sandsは全米テニスチャンピオンにも輝いたテニスプレーヤーである。しかし歴史上ゴルフの金メダリストとして名を残すのだから運命はわからない。
Sands was a well-known athlete, though. Primarily a tennis player, he was the United States’ champion in 1905 in court tennis, the original form of the game. He is one of only two American athletes to have competed in the Olympics in three sports - 1900 in golf, 1900 in lawn tennis, and 1908 in jeu de paume (the original name of court tennis).
Margaret Abbottはシカゴ在住の女子学生で、パリで絵画を学んでいた際に母親のMary (7位) とともにこのトーナメントに参加した。これはオリンピック史上唯一の母娘が同時に競技したケースだそうだ。
そしてMargaret Abbottはアメリカ女性として初のオリンピック金メダリストになったのだが、彼女(を含めて多くの参加者)はこれがオリンピックの競技であることに気付かず、そのまま亡くなったという。
Margaret Abbott was born in Calcutta (Kolkata), India in 1878 to wealthy parents. She learned her golf at the Chicago Golf Club but in 1900 was studying art in Paris, accompanied by her mother, who also played in the Olympic golf tournament (she finished seventh). By winning the Olympic golf tournament she became the first American woman to win an Olympic event (and only the second overall).
These games were apparently so poorly organized that many competitors, including Abbott, did not realize that the events they entered were part of the Olympics. Historical research did not establish that the game was on the Olympic program until after her death, so she herself never knew it.
competed in the event, finishing tied for seventh, making it the first (and still only) Olympic event in which a mother and daughter competed at the same time.
George Seymour Lyon (July 27, 1858 - May 11, 1938) was a Canadian golfer, an Olympic gold medallist, an eight-time Canadian Amateur Championship winner, and a member of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
Although he began playing golf at the age of 38, he won the gold medal in golf in the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. He won the Canadian Amateur Championship a record eight times between 1898 and 1914, and won the Canadian Seniors' Golf Association Championship ten times between 1918 and 1930.
He traveled to London in 1908 to defend his Olympic title, but plans to stage a golf tournament there were cancelled at the last minute, since representatives from England and Scotland were unable to agree on the format, and golf has not been held in the Olympics since.
In 1955, Lyon was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. In 1971, he was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame.
THIS STONE
COMMEMORATES THE EXPLOIT OF
WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS
WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL
AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME
FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT
THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF
THE RUGBY GAME
A.D. 1823
