In the eleventh century, French monks started playing a game by batting a crude handball around the monastery.
It was a kind of handball with a rope strung across a courtyard.
The game progressed and became popular with royalty before catching on in England in the thirteenth century.
When returning a ball over the net, the French players shouted, “Tenez,” which, roughly translated, means, “Take that!”
The English did the same, only “tenez” became “tennis.”