Analyzing how tennis turned pro

The arrival of the Open era in 1968 was a watershed in the history of tennis--the year that marked its advent as a professionalized sport。 Merging wide-angle history with individual stories of players and off-the-court figures， Greg Ruth charts tennis’s evolution into the game we watch today。 His vivid account moves from the cloistered world of nineteenth-century lawn tennis through the longtime amateur-professional divide and the battles over commercialization that raged from the 1920s until 1968。 From there， Ruth details the post-1968 expansion of the game as it was transformed by bankable superstars， a popular women’s tour， rival governing bodies， and sponsorship money。 What emerges is a fascinating history of the economics and politics that made tennis a decisive， if unlikely， force in the creation of modern-day sports entertainment。 Comprehensive and engaging， Tennis tells the interlocking stories of the figures and factors that birthed the professional game。