Tennis Players

Tennis players come from many walks of life. In the early days of tennis they generally hailed from the leisurely, upper-crust classes of English and American society, but in the modern era tennis players have come from backgrounds both wealthy and relatively poor.

Tennis Players

Tennis players had long stood by a tradition of eschewing professional play for the first half-century or so of the sport's existence, but after 1968 professional tennis players began to emerge in the major Grand Slam tournaments and thereby became quickly visible (with the help of television) to the tennis-playing world. In 1972, the Association of Tennis Professionals was formed to represent male professional tennis players, and in the following year the Women's Tennis Association was created to represent female professionals.

How To Play Tennis

Since then, many elite players in tennis have arisen to star athlete status in the public eye. In men's tennis, some of the most famous tennis players include Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, Andy Roddick, Boris Becker, Rod Laver, Lleyton Hewitt, and Michael Chang. In women's tennis, some of the most well-known players include Margaret Smith Court, Steffi Graf, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati, Justine Henin, Martina Navratilova, and Maria Sharapova. Some female tennis stars are sometimes more noted for their looks than for their athletic prowess; Anna Kournikova, a retired female tennis player who doubled as a model, is one very well-known example of this.

Tennis Player

Some top tennis players have become genuine celebrities in today's popular culture. The twin athletes Venus and Serena Williams quickly became media darlings after their meteoric rise in women's tennis championships. Having twin sisters simultaneously rank as the world's top two women's tennis players naturally lends itself to human interest beyond simply that of tennis enthusiasts. Their personal lives also grabbed the media's attention, especially with regards to the sometimes obsessive behavior of their father, Richard Williams.

Tennis players sometimes seem to reach their peak at a particularly young age relative to the careers of athletes in other popular sports, sometimes peaking in their late teens and early twenties. The Taiwanese-American Michael Chang is one example of this - he had set records for being the youngest player to win tournaments throughout his teens, culminating in his famous 1989 French Open victory when he became the youngest player to ever win the French Open at age 17. The Russian women's tennis star Maria Sharapova is also known for being one of the youngest players to win Wimbledon.