Peugeot: Family Industry to Global Manufacturer

Tennis began as a game of courts, clubs, lawns, and rituals, but it grew into one of the world’s most recognisable sporting cultures. Net Gains: The Rise of Tennis in Sporting Culture tells the fact-based story of how tennis evolved from medieval handball games and royal court traditions into a global professional sport shaped by Grand Slam championships, national rivalries, television, technology, fashion, celebrity, equality campaigns, and mass participation. From the birth of lawn tennis and the rise of Wimbledon to the Davis Cup, the Open Era, the Williams sisters, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, modern women’s tennis, public access, academies, data, and the digital court, this book follows the people, places, and changes that made tennis far more than a game. It explores how surfaces shaped styles, how players became cultural figures, how women fought for recognition, how technology changed officiating and preparation, and how tennis moved from elite spaces into parks, stadiums, screens, and everyday sporting life. Written in a polished, narrative, fact-only style, this is a broad cultural history of tennis for readers interested in sport, society, competition, and the enduring drama of a ball crossing a net.