Like basketball with its popular events such as the March Madness where fans explore the March Madness picks to bet on games, tennis is a popular sport, with millions of people worldwide enjoying it daily. It’s a game that requires lots of skill, agility, and strategy, but there are also some pretty unusual facts about it that many don’t know about.
Here are eight bizarre facts about tennis that will leave you speechless:
Unbelievable Tennis Facts That You Probably Didn’t Know About
- Cream and pineapple
As a finishing touch, the Wimbledon trophy is topped with a pineapple. It represents the habit of English sailors placing pineapples on their gateposts after a long voyage. We are not sure how the game of tennis got to be linked with long sea voyages, but it does make the trophy very interesting (and delicious).
- Two gold medals
The first individual to win the tennis gold medal at the Olympics just walked up and won.
John Pius Boland was on vacation in Athens during the Olympic Games when a friend on the organizing committee registered him for singles tennis. Boland won the singles tournament, then went on to win the doubles game with the man he defeated in the initial round of singles, Germany’s Friedrich Traun.
- Lasted 3 days
The lengthiest match in history occurred in 2010 at Wimbledon, where John Isner and Nicolas Mahut competed in a phenomenally epic 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68 victory for Isner that stretched 11 hours and five minutes and spanned three days.
- Long overdue prize money for women
2007 marked the first year men and women received equal prize money for winning Wimbledon. Better late than never, right?
- Took only 30 minutes
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Isner-Mahut, the fastest Grand Slam championship ever, occurred in 1988. Steffi Graf defeated Natalia Zvereva 6-0, 6-0 in just 34 minutes to retain her title.
- Game of the palm
In the beginning, tennis was played with the hands. It was known as “jeu de paume” (game of the palm), and until the 16th century, people’s hands were probably bruised and red.
- There is no precise origin of love
In tennis, there is no conclusive explanation for why we say “love” for zero. Some believe it is derived from the French term “l’oeuf,” as in “egg,” which means zero. There’s also a chance it arose from the Dutch phrase “iets voor lof doen,” which means “no stake in the game.”
- Fastest serve
During the 2016 Davis Cup, John Isner delivered the fastest serve in tennis history. It was during a tie against Australia when the American legend fired a lightning-fast serve, creating a new world record of 253 km/h.
These are some of the interesting facts about tennis that you now know.
