Encyclopedia
Real tennis is the original racket sport from which the modern game of lawn tennis, or
tennis, is descended. Real tennis is still played at a small number of active courts in the
United Kingdom,
Australia, the
United States and
France.
It is also known as "court tennis" ,
jeu de paume and formerly called "royal tennis" . The term
real tennis is often thought to be a corruption of this last name and related to the game's connection with royalty during its heyday in England and France in the
16th and
17th centuries. In fact
"real" was first used at the end of the
19th century as a retronym to distinguish it from the then recently invented game of lawn tennis. Real tennis players often just call it "tennis", describing the modern game as "lawn tennis".
History
Henry VII played Real Tennis.The term "tennis" derives from the French word
tenez, which means "take it" — a warning from the server to the receiver. Real tennis has evolved over centuries from an earlier ball game played around the
12th century in France. This had some similarities to palla, fives,
pelota, or
handball, involving hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. One theory is that this game was played by monks in
monastery cloisters, and the shape of the court is certainly to this day reminiscent of a courtyard. Another theory is that the court features relate to medieval city streets and squares.
The game spread across
Europe and became increasingly popular, with the
Venetian Ambassador reporting in 1600 that there were 1,800 courts in
Paris alone.
Shakespeare mentions the game in Act 1 of Henry V. By the
16th century, the glove had become a racquet, the game had moved to an enclosed playing area and the rules had stabilised.
Henry VIII's great attachment to the game around this time is also well known. He played the game at
Hampton Court, and indeed his second wife
Anne Boleyn was watching a game of real tennis at Hampton Court when she was arrested, whilst it is claimed that Henry was playing real tennis when news was brought to him of her
execution. The game became popular among the
17th and
18th century nobility in
England and France, but eventually declined in popularity. This was due in large part to the impact that wider political and social changes—the
English Civil War and Puritanism, and the
French revolution—had upon the aristocracy and its pursuits. Real tennis played a minor role in the history of the French Revolution, through the
Tennis Court Oath, a pledge signed by French deputies in a real tennis court, which formed a decisive early step in starting the
revolution.
The game regained popularity in the
19th century, but soon gave birth to the outdoor game of
lawn tennis which quickly became the most popular form of the sport.
Today there are only around forty five real tennis courts remaining in the world and several thousand active players. There has been something of a revival towards the end of the
20th century, with several new courts being built, for example in the UK at
Clifton College and the Millennium Tennis Court at
Middlesex University and in Australia in Sydney, Ballarat and Romsey. In 1999 Mike Carter became probably the first private individual to build a pair of real tennis courts at Prested Hall near Colchester, England, one with a unique glass viewing wall. In the United States, the court at the
Newport Casino, now the International Tennis Hall of Fame in
Newport, Rhode Island, was restored and brought back to use in 1980 after more than 50 years of inactivity. In 1997, the first new court in the United States since
World War I, was completed in
McLean, Virginia near
Washington, DC. Known as Prince's Court, it is the first to have an entirely glass wall to facilitate viewing. Both of these courts are open to the public. The Netherlands and Ireland have real tennis interest groups. The Irish Real Tennis Association is currently involved in a legal battle with
University College Dublin to restore one of the few two surviving real tennis courts in the
Republic of Ireland, which has been used by the college as a gymnasium and more recently a laboratory, since 1939. The Royal Tennis Court at Hampton Court Palace is the oldest court in the world still in use. It is one of several courts in England where members of the public can watch the game being played.
Manner of play
The rules and scoring are similar to those of
lawn tennis, which derives from real tennis. Although in both sports game scoring is by fifteens, in real tennis 6 games wins a set, even if the opponent has 5 games. A match is typically best of 5 sets.
The 2˝ inch diameter balls are handmade and consist of a core made of cork with fabric tape tightly wound around it and is covered with a hand-sewn layer of felt. Until recently the felt was always white, but yellow has been introduced for player safety. They are much less bouncy than a lawn tennis ball, and weigh about 2˝ ounces . The 27 inch long
racquets are made of wood and use very tight strings to cope with the heavy ball. The racquet head is bent slightly to make it easier to strike balls close to the floor or in corners.
A real tennis court is a very substantial building . It is enclosed by walls on all sides, three of which have sloping roofs with various openings, and a buttress off which shots may be played. The courts share the same basic layout but have slightly different dimensions. The courts are about 110 by 39 feet including the penthouses, or about 96 by 32 feet on the playing floor, varying by a foot or two per court. They are doubly
asymmetric—not only is one end of the court different in the shape from the other, but the left and right sides of the court are also different. The service only happens from one end of the court and the ball has to travel along the penthouse to the left of the server to the other end, called the "hazard" end. There are numerous widely differing styles of service, many with exotic names to distinguish them. The game of stické uses a smaller court of a similar layout.
The game has other complexities, including that when the ball bounces twice at the serving end, the serving player does not generally lose the point outright. Instead a "chase" is called, and the server gets the chance, later in the game currently being played, to replay the point from the other end, but under the obligation of ensuring every shot he plays has a second bounce further back from the net than the shot he failed to reach. A chase can also be called at the receiving end, but only on the half of the receiving end nearest the net; this is called a "hazard" chase. Those areas of the court in which chases can be called are marked with lines running across the floor, from left to right, generally about 1 yard apart - it is these lines that the chases are measured against. One result of this feature is that a player can only gain the advantage of serving through skillful play , as opposed to lawn tennis where service alternates between the players by rotation. In theory this means that an entire match could be played, with no change of service, and the same player serving every point.
The heavy, unbouncy balls take a great deal of spin, causing them to swerve when bounced off the walls, and a cutting stroke is often used to cause them to drop sharply off the back wall for the sake of a good chase.
Another interesting twist to the game is the various windows below the penthouse roof that, in some cases, offer the player a chance to win the point instantly by hitting the ball into the opening. The largest window, located behind the server, is called the "Dedans" and must often be defended from hard hit shots coming from the receiving side of the court. The resulting strategy of long volleys and shots off the side walls and penthouse roof lead to many interesting shots not normally played in lawn tennis. However, because of the weight of the balls, the small racquets, and the need to defend the rear of the court, lawn tennis strategies like serve and volley are rarely employed.
The level of thinking involved makes real tennis unusual in being a physical sport which people often take up and reach a relatively high level of proficiency later in life.
Tennis in literature
The
Penguin book of Sick Verse includes a poem by William Lathum comparing life to a tennis-court:
- If in my weak conceit, ,
- The world I sample to a Tennis-court,
- Where fate and fortune daily meet to play,
- I doe conceive, I doe not much misse-say.
- All manner chance are Rackets, wherewithall
- They bandie men, from wall to wall;
- Some over Lyne, to honour and great place,
- Some under Lyne, to infame and disgrace;
- Some with a cutting stroke they nimbly sent
- Into the hazard placed at the end; ...
The Scottish
gothic novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by
James Hogg describes a tennis match that degenerates into violence.
The detective story
Dead Nick takes place in a tennis milieu, and the title alludes to a shot that drops in the nick between the back wall and the floor.
Hazard Chase by Jeremy Potter is a thriller-detective story featuring real tennis on the court at Hampton Court Palace. During the story the game is explained, and the book contains a diagram of a real tennis court. Jeremy Potter wrote historical works , and was himself an accomplished player of the game, winning the World Amateur Over-60s Championship in 1986.
Tennis in film
Real tennis is featured in the film
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a fictionalized meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud. One of the film's plot points turns on Freud being forced into a grudge set with a Teutonic nobleman. The film
The French Lieutenant's Woman includes a sequence featuring a few points being played. Also
The Three Musketeers is a novel [i] by Alexandre Dumas, pre [i]. ...
and
Ever After is a 1998 [i] film [i] adaptation of the romantic fairy tale [i] ...
briefly feature the game. Although presented with varying degrees of accuracy, these films provide a chance to see the game played, which otherwise may be difficult to observe personally.
See also
References
- Lord Aberdare . The J.T. Faber Book of Tennis and Rackets. London: Quiller Press. ISBN 1-899163-62-X.
- Heiner Gillmeister . Tennis: A Cultural History. London: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-7185-0147-0.
- Julian Marshall . The Annals of Tennis. Facsimile reprinted 1973 by Racquet Sports Information & Services, Inc.: Baltimore.
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