The French Open, The US Open, Wimbledon and The Australian Open are four major Tennis Tournaments that make up the Grand Slam.

These tournaments are also among the most recognised Tennis tourneys in the world. Tennis is a very popular game and children as young as 7 years have begun taking special coaching lessons to master the game. Tennis is a game that requires tremendous agility, reflexes, swiftness, speed, strength and stamina. A Tennis player needs to have extremely strong legs to keep running within the court and strong shoulders and arms to serve and return volleys. A good physique and over all fitness are an advantage to a Tennis player.

Tennis is played on grass court as well as clay courts. The most famous grass courts are in Wimbledon and every player worth his game would want to one day play at Wimbledon. Tennis is a racquet game which is played with a soft ball, called the Tennis Ball. The soft ball is always green in color.

The Grand Slam

There are four major tournaments that make up the Grand Slam and a Tennis player who wins all the four tournaments in a given year is said to have won the Grand Slam. There are many players both men and women who have won the Grand Slam many times.

Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Chris Evert are famous female players who have won the Grand Slam a number of times. Among the men the names of Grand Slam winners that immediately come to mind are Boris Becker, Bjorn Borg, Andre Agassi and Roger Federer. All these are living legends of the game of Tennis and have won the grand Slam several times.

Number of Players in Tennis

Tennis is a game that has flexible rules when it comes to who can play, and all tournaments have both men and women participating, which is not so in most sports. Moreover, all major Tennis tournaments always have a singles tournament, a doubles tournament and a mixed doubles tournament.

All Tennis tournaments also have a tournament for under-19s, which is again singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Selecting Doubles Partners for a Tennis Tournament

There is no restriction on who can partner a player in a doubles or mixed doubles tournament. The players are free to choose and form their own team. It is quite common to see doubles and mixed doubles partners in a Tennis match from different nationalities.