Historians believe that the first form of tennis was created in the 12th century in France. In this version of the game, a ball was hit with a hand, not a racket and it was believed bored monks in monasteries created the game. It was called jeu de paume and King Louis X of France was a notable and keen player of the game.
That form of the game eventually evolved into "real tennis" which is very similar to modern tennis, just slightly more complex. Rackets didn't come into use until the 16th century, and the name tennis is thought to be derived from the French word tenez, meaning "take" or "hold". These rackets led to real tennis, and the game could only be played indoors as it required the players to hit off the side of the wall.
The origin of modern tennis as we know it came between 1859 and 1865, in which two men in England developed a sport that combined elemnts of racquets and pelota. They played the game on of the men's croquet lawn, which led to the sport being called lawn tennis. A few years later, a British army officer wrote to one of the creators and talked of how he had been experimenting with his own version of the game for a while, and it is him who most sports historians credit with the development of what is modern tennis. He was the one who popularized it enormously and sold a box set with the needed equipment.
