To be accurate, the net is 3-1/2 feet high at the posts on either side of the court, but in the middle it is pulled down to just 3 feet. The beauty of this nuance is that it offers a greater opportunity to successfully hit a low cross-court shot, keeping rallies alive, while making shots hit directly down the sidelines a riskier proposition. It introduces a bit extra strategy into the game.
How tennis ended up with its present dimensions is interesting. The sport grew out of various other sports that date back to the 12th century. Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, a British Army officer, patented the rules to “lawn tennis” in 1874. But it was something of an odd duck at first, with a five-foot-high net, as in badminton, and an hourglass-shaped court. This didn’t work, and Wingfield let the patent expire so that he could make some changes, switching to a rectangular court and, in 1882, lowering the net to 3-1/2 feet, making for a quite different game. The lower net means that players can hit harder, flatter shots while not eliminating lobs.
