Totem tennis (also known as tether tennis or swingball) is a game where two players use racquets to strike a tennis or sponge ball which has been attached with string to the top of a vertical pole. [1] The pole is either driven into soft ground or anchored with a heavy base.
Tether tennis has been known since the early 1900s. [2]
The British company Mookie Toys claims that in 1993 it acquired the global rights for the Swingball brand, the product sold since 1974. [3] In Mookie Toys Swingball, there is a helical coil of wire at the top of the pole and the competitors hit the ball clockwise or anticlockwise around the pole to make it go up or down the coil, the winner being the person who gets the ball to their end of the coil, top or bottom.[ citation needed ]
Other commercial swingball toys have a rotating component to attach the string, so that it does not wrap around the pole. [4]
The mother of British tennis star Andy Murray asserts that part of Andy's success may be attributed to swingball he used to play at their home in Scotland in early childhood. [5]
The game was once sold in the United States under the name Zimm Zamm.
Tennis is a racket sport that can be played 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 racket, or racquet, is a sports implement used for striking a ball or shuttlecock in games such as squash, tennis, racquetball, badminton and padel. In the strictest sense a racket consists of a handled frame with an open hoop across which a network of strings is stretched tightly. Some rackets may have a solid or perforated hitting surface instead of a network of strings. Such rackets may be called a paddle or bat. Collectively, these games are known as racket sports.
Pinball is an arcade game in which a ball rolls and is propelled inside a machine, hitting various lights, bumpers, ramps, and other targets depending on its design. The game's object is generally to score as many points as possible by hitting these targets and making various shots with flippers before the ball is lost. Most pinball machines use one ball per turn, and the game ends when the ball(s) from the last turn are lost.
A spinning top, or simply a top, is a toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, designed to be spun on its vertical axis, balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect.
Ivan Lendl is a former professional tennis player from Czechoslovakia who later obtained American citizenship. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all-time. Lendl was ranked world No. 1 for 270 weeks and won 94 singles titles. He won eight major singles titles and was runner-up a joint record 11 times, making him the first man to contest 19 major finals. Lendl also contested a record eight consecutive US Open finals, and won seven year-end championships.
Tetherball is a game where two players use their hands to strike a volleyball which is suspended from stationary metal pole by a rope or tether. The two players stand on opposite sides of the pole, and each tries to hit the ball one way; one clockwise, and one counterclockwise. The game ends when one player manages to wind the ball all the way around the pole so that it is stopped by the rope. It must not bounce.
A space hopper is a rubber ball with handles which allow one to sit on it without falling off. The user can attempt to hop around on the toy, using the elastic properties of the ball to move forward.
Sir Andrew Barron Murray OLY is a British professional tennis player from Scotland. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 41 weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 in 2016. He has won three Grand Slam singles titles, two at Wimbledon and one at the US Open (2012), and has reached eleven major finals. Murray was ranked in the top 10 for all but one month from July 2008 through October 2017, and finished no lower than No. 4 in eight of the nine year-end rankings during that span. Murray has won 46 ATP singles titles, including 14 ATP Masters 1000 events.
A tennis ball is a ball designed for the sport of tennis. Tennis balls are fluorescent yellow in organised competitions, but in recreational play can be virtually any color. Tennis balls are covered in a fibrous felt which modifies their aerodynamic properties, and each has a white curvilinear oval covering it.
Brad Gilbert is a former professional tennis player and an American tennis coach. During his career, he won 20 singles titles and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 in 1990, and a career-high doubles ranking of world No. 18 four years prior. He won a bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics, and both a gold medal and a silver medal at the 1981 Maccabiah Games.
Astrojax, invented in 1986 by Larry Shaw, is a toy consisting of three balls on a string. One ball is fixed at each end of the string, and the center ball is free to slide along the string between the two end balls. Inside each ball is a metal weight. The metal weight lowers the moment of inertia of the center ball so it can rotate rapidly in response to torques applied by the string. This prevents the string from snagging or tangling around the center ball.
Cup-and-ball or ring and pin is a traditional children's toy. It is generally a wooden handle to which a small ball is attached by a string and that has one or two cups, or a spike, upon which the player tries to catch the ball. It is popular in Spanish-speaking countries, where it is called by a wide number of names, and was historically popular in France as the bilboquet. A similar toy with three cups and a spike called kendama is very popular in Japan and has spread globally in popularity.
The Great Britain Davis Cup team has represented the United Kingdom internationally since 1900 in the Davis Cup. Organised by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), it is one of the 50 members of International Tennis Federation's European association.
For the sport called "beach paddleball", see Matkot. For other sports called "paddleball", see Paddleball (sport).
Paddle ball is a one-person game played with a paddle and an attached ball. Using the flat paddle with the small rubber ball attached at the center via an elastic string, the player tries to hit the ball with the paddle in succession as many times as possible.
James Ward is a British former professional tennis player. He is a Davis Cup champion and former British No. 2.
Dominic Inglot is a British former professional tennis player and a Davis Cup champion. A doubles specialist; he has made the final of twenty six ATP World Tour events, winning fourteen, including the Citi Open and Swiss Indoors partnering Treat Huey, and has also made the final of eight ATP Challenger Tour events winning five of them. He is the current British No. 4 in doubles. Also known as 'Dom the Bomb' due to his menacing serve.
The 2012 US Open Men's Singles final was the championship tennis match of the Men's Singles tournament at the 2012 US Open. In the final, Andy Murray defeated defending champion Novak Djokovic 7–6(12–10), 7–5, 2–6, 3–6, 6–2 to win the match. It is the joint longest US Open men's final in history, lasting 4 hours and 54 minutes, and the fourth-longest men's final in the Open era. By winning the 2012 US Open, Murray became the first British man since Fred Perry in 1936 to win a Grand Slam singles title, and the first British man in the Open Era to do so. The match is a significant part of the rivalry between the two players. This match also marked a milestone for Murray, as it was his 100th match win at a grand slam tournament.
The 2013 Wimbledon Championships Men's Singles final was the championship tennis match of the Men's Singles tournament at the 2013 Wimbledon Championships. A significant part of the Djokovic–Murray rivalry, it pitted the world's top two players, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, against each other in a Grand Slam final for the fourth time.