Sources
- Greg Hoffman, The Art of World Team Tennis, San Francisco Book Company, 1977 ISBN 0-913374-65-2
- World Team Tennis, Official site
The multi-colored no-line tennis court is a variant design for a tennis court introduced by World TeamTennis (WTT) during its early years.
The different areas of the no-line tennis court are defined by colors instead of white lines. White lines on a standard tennis court are painted onto a single or two-tone, colored background, as required by the rules of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and the International Tennis Federation (ITF).
The original multi-colored, no-line tennis court has eleven separate colored areas with no segregating lines. As a functional, no-line tennis court design it was issued a USPTO utility patent #4,045,022 in 1977 to its inventors, Geoffrey Grant, an avid and successful senior tennis competitor, and Robert Nicks, an engineer. These two inventors also developed, tested and patented (USPTO patent. # 3,982,759 the original tennis electronic line judge used by the men's World Championship Tennis and women's tennis tours in 1974–75.
Distinctively, the no-line, multi-colored tennis court deviates from both the USTA and the ITF rules because the court‘s playing zones are separated by color instead of lines. Specifically, the court lacks a line dividing the service courts that is two inches wide and twenty-one feet long, and within the rules of tennis, this line is considered to be a part of both service zones. During play, a tennis ball served that hits the shared line is playable from either side service positions. In the absence of the line the size of both service areas deviates from the rules because each court is one inch (2.5 centimeters) narrower than specified by the USTA and the ITF.
The multi-colored court used by the Advanta WTT sponsored league in 2008–09 is a compromise in that it has both white lines and the colored areas that satisfies both the rules of the tennis organizations and media appeal.
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object of the game is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. The player who is unable to return the ball validly will not gain a point, while the opposite player will.
A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be used to create a tennis court, each with its own characteristics which affect the playing style of the game.
Shuffleboard is a game in which players use cues to push weighted discs, sending them gliding down a narrow court, with the purpose of having them come to rest within a marked scoring area. As a more generic term, it refers to the family of shuffleboard-variant games as a whole.
A patent examiner is an employee, usually a civil servant with a scientific or engineering background, working at a patent office.
World TeamTennis (WTT) was a mixed-gender professional tennis league played with a team format in the United States, which was founded in 1973.
Major Walter Clopton Wingfield was a Welsh inventor and a British Army officer who was one of the pioneers of lawn tennis. Inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1997 as the founder of modern lawn tennis, an example of the original equipment for the sport and a bust of Wingfield can be seen at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.
Pickleball is a racket or paddle sport in which two players (singles) or four players (doubles) hit a perforated, hollow plastic ball with paddles over a 34-inch-high (0.86 m) net until one side is unable to return the ball or commits a rule infraction. Pickleball is played indoors and outdoors. It was invented in 1965 as a children's backyard game in the United States, on Bainbridge Island in Washington state. In 2022, pickleball was named the official state sport of Washington.
Kerry Melville Reid is a former professional tennis player from Australia. During her 17-year career, Reid won one Grand Slam singles title and 26 other singles titles and was the runner-up in 40 singles tournaments. Reid was included in the year-end world top-ten rankings for 12 consecutive years (1968–1979). She won at least one tournament annually from 1966 through 1979, except for 1975. Her career-high ranking was world No. 5 in 1971, behind Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Evonne Goolagong, and Rosie Casals.
This page is a glossary of tennis terminology.
Rosemary "Rosie" Casals is an American former professional tennis player.
Traditionally, tennis is played between two people in a singles match, or two pairs in a doubles match. Tennis can also be played on different courts, including grass courts, clay courts, hard courts, and artificial grass courts.
Ilana Sheryl Kloss is a South African former professional tennis player, tennis coach, and administrator. She was the World's No. 1 ranked doubles player in 1976, and World No. 19 in singles in 1979. She won the Wimbledon juniors singles title in 1972, the US Open juniors singles title in 1974, and the US Open Doubles and French Open Mixed Doubles titles in 1976. She won three gold medals at the 1973 Maccabiah Games in Israel. After her playing career, Kloss was the commissioner of World TeamTennis from 2001–2021.
The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis, invented in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, now commonly known simply as tennis, is the direct descendant of what is now denoted real tennis or royal tennis, which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules. The first Lawn Tennis Club and tournament was held in Royal Leamington Spa on 1 August 1882.
In tennis, an official is a person who ensures that a match or tournament is conducted according to the International Tennis Federation Rules of Tennis and other competition regulations.
An electronic line judge is a device used in tennis to automatically detect where a ball has landed on the court. Attempts to revolutionize tennis officiating and the judging of calls in the sport began in the early 1970s and has resulted in the design, development and prototyping of several computerized, electronic line-judge devices. The methods have been based upon the use of pressure sensors, sensors to detect magnetized or electrically conductive tennis balls, infrared laser beams, and most recently video cameras.
A patent application or patent may contain drawings, also called patent drawings, illustrating the invention, some of its embodiments, or the prior art. The drawings may be required by the law to be in a particular form, and the requirements may vary depending on the jurisdiction.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to tennis.
Taylor Townsend is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 57 in singles by the WTA, which she achieved on 8 April 2024, and she attained her career-high doubles ranking of world No. 5 on 12 June 2023. A five-time doubles title holder on the WTA Tour, Townsend has also reached two major finals: the 2022 US Open and the 2023 French Open.
Ben Press was an American tennis player, coach, and writer, known for his involvement in World Team Tennis, his connection with the Hotel del Coronado, and as teacher of tennis standouts such as Maureen Connolly and Karen Hantze Susman.
The New Orleans Sun Belt Nets were a charter franchise of World Team Tennis (WTT). The team first played as the Cleveland Nets in 1974, and was known as the Cleveland–Pittsburgh Nets in 1977, when it played roughly half of its home matches in each city. The Nets moved to New Orleans for the 1978 season. Following the 1978 season, the Nets announced that the team would fold. The Nets played all five seasons in WTT from the league's inception in 1974, until its suspension of operations after the 1978 season. The team had losing records in each of its five seasons.