Sports - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 1982 - 3 Shilling

Strange as it may sound, tennis was a very popular sport in the Middle Ages. Although the ball was hit by hand at first and only later used clubs, the basic elements of this sport were included from the beginning. Old writings convey that there were 14 so-called ball houses in Austria in 1500. During the reign of Ferdinand I (1521-1564) three more gambling halls were built in Vienna. For centuries, the sporting life of society played out in these ballhouses. In 1741, however, the Empress Maria Theresia transformed the Ballhaus at the present Ring into the "Burgtheater", but built a new home for the ballgame at the so-called Ballhausplatz. Prince Auersperg ran the last ball house in the old style, in which tennis was played until 1921. Of course you can not compare the ball game of this time with today's tennis. The founder of modern tennis is the English Major W.C. Wingfield, who in 1874 patented under the strange name "Sphaeristike" a pitch in the size of 9.14 m x 18.28 m. A year later, the final rules of the game emerged and in 1877 the first major Wimbledon tournament took place, following the same rules as today.