[f. as prec.] One who plays at tennis; now, usually, at lawn-tennis.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 488/2. Teneys pleyare, teniludius.
1635. Stafford, Fem. Glory (1869), 106. The best Tennis-player living cannot shew his cunning.
1674. Temple, Lett. to Sir J. Temple, Wks. 1731, II. 297. We were both together young Travellers and Tennis Players in France.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., II. iii. (1876), 161. We have … authority to prove that Henry VII was a tennis player.
1884. Harper’s Mag., Jan., 304/2. The champion tennis-players.
So Tennis-playing, playing at tennis.
1441. [see TENNIS 1].
1495. Act 11 Hen. VII., c. 2 § 5. Where … tenys pleiyng bowles Clossh or any other unlawfull game … shalbe used.
1583. Stubbes, Anat. Abus., II. (1882), 33 They spend it in dicing, carding, bowling, tennise plaieng.
1875. Sarah M. H. Davis, Life & Times Sir P. Sidney (rev. ed.), iv. 71. Sidney here applied himself with especial zeal to the study of those accomplishments which were deemed essential to the finish of a high-born cavalier; fencing, the use of arms in tournament and tilt, tennis playing, music, and, above all, horsemanship.
