Tennis recreational players and is also a popular worldwide spectator sport. The four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the Majors) are especially popular: the Australian Open played on hard courts, the French Open played on red clay courts, Wimbledon played on grass courts, and the US Open also played on hard courts. Historians believe that the game's ancient origin lay in 12th century northern France, where a ball was struck with the palm of the hand. Louis X of France was a keen player of jeu de paume ("game of the palm"), which evolved into real tennis, and became
Jeu de paume like the Mesoamerican ballgame are clearly unrelated. Various other racquet games (squash, badminton, etc.) may be related to one degree or another. The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, a museum of contemporary art, is housed in a former court on the north side of the Tuileries park in the centre of Paris. The painter Jacques-Louis David's famous sketch, "le Serment du jeu de paume" ('the Tennis Court Oath') now hangs in the court of the Palace of Versailles. It depicts a seminal moment of the French Revolution, when, on 20 June 1789, deputies of the Estates-General met at the