Tennis in its modern form was popularized through the means of open tennis tournaments. Open tennis tournaments were meant to encourage participation from professional and semiprofessional players. It was also aimed to attract the attention of amateur level players. The overall idea was not only to popularize the sport would also to improve the standard of play across the world. Open tennis tournaments during their inception stages were technically meant for players of all kinds-professional, semiprofessional or amateur. In fact, during the formative years of open tennis tournaments, many amateur and semiprofessional players participated and even won some tournaments. The actual purpose of the open tennis tournaments were actually achieved because not only these tournaments attracted wide range participation, it also helped in popularizing the sport in many parts of the world. Open tournaments were also able to attract completely new set of followers thereby increasing the fan base of the sport. All these achievements can actually be considered as secondary because the open tennis tournaments were primarily designed and created by lawn tennis clubs across the world. Their idea was also to popularize their own club in the world, apart from increasing popularity of the game. In many such clubs were actually successful in achieving this-for example Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Australian open, etc, where privately run open tennis tournaments but as time progressed they became a part of the grand slam tournaments. There were many failures too-many open tournaments were forced to discontinue the schedule due to lack of participation or lack of finances. However, the role played by open tennis tournaments in popularizing the sport can never be denied. Open tennis tournaments gradually became selective about the player participation.
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