1st Edition
Routledge Handbook of Tennis History, Culture and Politics
Tennis is one of the world’s most popular sports, as levels of participation and spectatorship demonstrate. Moreover, tennis has always been one of the world’s most significant sports, expressing crucial fractures of social class, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity - both on and off court.
This is the first book to undertake a survey of the historical and socio-cultural sweep of tennis, exploring key themes from governance, development and social inclusion to national identity and the role of the media. It is presented in three parts: historical developments; culture and representations; and politics and social issues, and features contributions by leading tennis scholars from North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
The most authoritative book published to date on the history, culture and politics of tennis, this is an essential reference for any course or program examining the history, sociology, politics or culture of sport.
1. Introduction to the History and Historiography of Tennis
Robert J. Lake
Part I: Historical Developments (Commercialization, Professionalization and the Creation of Tennis Celebrities; Globalization and Internationalization of Tennis)
2. From Folk Game to Elite Pastime: Tennis and its Patrons
Brad Hummel and Mark Dyreson
3. Grass Roots: The Development of Tennis in Britain, 1918–1978
Joyce Kay
4. Coaching and Training in British Tennis: A History of Competing Ideals
Robert J. Lake, Dave Day and Simon J. Eaves
5. Golden Years and Golden Stars: International Women’s Tennis between the Wars
Elizabeth Wilson
6. A Transcendent Game Plan: Bill Tilden’s Rhetorical Strategy in Defying the USLTA
John Carvalho and Michael Milford
7. Fred Perry and the amateur-professional divide in British tennis between the wars
Kevin Jefferys
8. Boris Becker and Steffi Graf: German tennis, media images and national identity
Kristian Naglo
9. The Female Hero through the Cultural Lens: Comparing Framing of Li Na in Chinese and Western Media
Steve Bien-Aimé, Haiyan Jia and Chun Yang
10. The World’s Game? Globalization and the Cultural Economy of Tennis
Barry Smart
11. Jeu de Paume, Lawn Tennis and France’s National Identity from the 1870s to the Musketeers Era
Patrick Clastres
12. Lawn Tennis in Ireland: The Untold History, 1870-1914
Simon J. Eaves and Tom Higgins
13. Socio-cultural Transformations of Tennis in the Czech Republic
Arnošt Svoboda and Dino Numerato
14. A Brief Historical, Political and Social Analysis of Argentine Tennis
Robert G. Rodriguez
15. Indian Tennis: Past Perfect, Present Continuous, Future Tense
Suvam Pal
16. Tennis in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region
Mahfoud Amara
Part II: Culture and Representations (Gender, Race, Class, the Arts and Media)
17. Fashioning Competitive Lawn Tennis: Object, Image, and Reality in Women’s Tennis Dress 1884-1919
Suzanne Rowland
18. Wimbledon Women: Elite Amateur Tennis Players in the Mid-Twentieth Century
Janine van Someren and Stephen Wagg
19. Beyond the "Kournikova Phenomenon": Race and Beauty in a ‘Colorblind’ Culture
Helen Ditouras
20. Making Work out of Play: The Troubling Gender Performances of Bill Tilden
Nathan Titman
21. Your Racquet Should Do the Talking: Masculinity and Top - Class Tennis, 1930s to the Early Twenty First Century
Stephen Wagg
22. "You’ve Come a Long Way Baby" but When Will You Get to Deuce? The Media (Re)presentation of Women‘s Tennis in the Post Open Era
John Vincent
23. Veiled Hyper-Sexualization: Deciphering Strong is Beautiful as collective identity in the WTA’s global ad campaign
Travis R. Bell and Janelle Applequist
24. Warriors of the Court: Richard "Pancho" González, Rosie Casals and the History of U.S. Latino/as in Tennis
José M. Alamillo
25. Historical Changes in Playing Styles and Behavioural Etiquette in Tennis: Reflecting Broader Shifts in Social Class and Gender Relations
Robert J. Lake
26. The Seductions of Modern Tennis: Technical Invention, Social Practice, Literary Discourse
Alexis Tadie
27. Understanding Competitive Tennis through Literature and the Visual Arts: Society, Celebrity and Aesthetics
Alexis Tadie
28. The Literature of Tennis
Jeffrey O. Segrave
29. International Tennis Art
Ann Sumner
30. Tennis and the Media: A History of Shifting Attitudes toward Tennis Journalism and Broadcasting
Robert J. Lake and Simon J. Eaves
31. Exploring an Online Tennis Community
Nadina Ayer and Ron McCarville
32. Tennis & Social Media
Katie Lebel and Karen Danylchuk
Part III: Politics and Social Issues (Governance, Nationalism and Identity: Race, Gender, Class and Disability)
33. Tennis Governance: A History of Political Power Struggles
Robert J. Lake
34. Defending the Grand Slam: Government Intervention, Urban Renewal and Keeping the Australian Open
Alistair John and Brent McDonald
35. Tennis and the Olympics: An Historical Examination of their On-Off Relationship since 1896
Matthew P. Llewellyn and Robert J. Lake
36. The Wimbledon Effect: The Tennis Championships as Changing National Symbol
Stephen Wagg
37. Andy Murray and the Borders of National Identities: (Re)Claiming a Tennis Champion
John Harris
38. Racial Politics in the History of American Tennis
Sundiata Djata
39. Arthur Ashe: Politics, Racism and Tennis
Eric Allen Hall
40. The Original 9: The Social Movement That Created Women’s Professional Tennis, 1968-1973
Kristi Tredway
41. Giving all women the chance: The Battle of the Sexes in Popular Culture
Jessica Luther
42. Break Point: Renée Richards and the Significance of Sex and Gender in Women’s Tennis
Lindsay Parks Pieper
43. Venus and Serena are "Doing It" for Themselves: Theorizing Sporting Celebrity, Marxism and Black Feminism for the Hip-Hop Generation
Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe
44. Wheelchair Tennis: Historical Development and Narratives of Play
Linda K. Fuller
45. A History of Social Exclusion in British Tennis: From Grass Roots to the Elite Level
Robert J. Lake
Biography
Robert J. Lake (Editor) is Instructor in the Department of Sport Science at Douglas College, Canada. He has written on numerous socio-historical aspects of tennis including social class, gender, national identity, media, coaching and talent development policy. His first book A Social History of Tennis in Britain (Routledge, 2015) won the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize in 2016 awarded by the British Society of Sports History.
Carol A. Osborne (Assistant Editor) is Senior Lecturer in Sport and Social Sciences at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her research focuses on women in sports history and gender relations in sport. She sat on the executive committee of the British Society of Sports History (BSSH) 2007–17 and has worked as an independent History Consultant with the UK-based Sporting Heritage CIC.
