Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Greg Ruth's volume adds to the historiography of tennis. He argues that his work “partners with” existing studies, while placing tennis events into a “historical context” to advance “a periodization of the sport” into the constitutive eras. Unlike some other books, Tennis limits itself to a thematic approach divided into three periods. Period one follows the inception of the sport to the domination of Suzanne Lenglen, the French champion, and the first international professional tour. The second period (1926–1968) follows the “intense competition and the commercialization” of tennis between the leaders of the organization who were attempting to keep the game exclusively amateur and the professional players and promoters who were seeking to earn a living through tennis. The final period sees more competition between amateur and professional players and the arrival of big money into the sport. During these periods, some of the elitism was chipped away from the sport. There was more money to be made, and the players began to get their share from marketing themselves and the sport.
Source: Journal of American History
Author: Sundiata Djata
Institution: Institut des sciences humaines
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4362734306