[i]Tennis is one of the world's most widely-played sports, enjoyed by players of all ages. It also a popular spectator sport, with star players in glamorous tournaments watched on TV by millions of fans all over the world. Tennis is an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games]Olympic[/url] sport and is played at all levels of society and at all ages. The sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelchair_tennis]wheelchair users[/url]. The modern game of tennis originated[br]in [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham]Birmingham[/url], [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England]England[/url], in the late 19th century as lawn tennis.[sup] [/sup] It had close connections both to various field (lawn) games such as [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet]croquet[/url] and [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowls]bowls[/url] as well as to the older racket sport today called [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_tennis]real tennis[/url]. During most of the 19th century, in fact, the term tennis referred to real tennis, not lawn tennis: for example, in [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disraeli]Disraeli[/url]'s novel [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_(novel)]Sybil[/url] (1845), Lord Eugene De Vere announces that he will "go down to [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Tennis_Court,_Hampton_Court]Hampton Court[/url] and play tennis.[/i]