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Real tennis

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Sports

   Jeu de paume in the 17th century.
   Jeu de paume in the 17th century.

   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 jeu de paume in France, "court tennis" in some
   parts of America, and formerly called "royal tennis" in Australia. 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

   Jesmond Dene jeu à dedans court
   Jesmond Dene jeu à dedans court
   Falkland Palace jeu quarré court
   Falkland Palace jeu quarré court

   The term "tennis" derives from the French word tenez, which means "take
   it" — a warning from the server to the receiver. Court 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. By the 16th century, the glove had become a racquet, the
   game had moved to an enclosed playing area and the rules had
   stabilised. Courts were built near many European palaces including the
   Louvre in Paris and Hampton Court in England.

   Shakespeare mentions the game in Act II of Henry V. When Henry
   declares:
   When we have match’d our rackets to these balls
   We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
   Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
   Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
   That all the courts in France will be disturb’d with chases!
   he is essentially challenging his cousin the Dauphin to a Court Tennis
   match with France as the prize. Little wonder that the sport became
   known as the "Game of Kings."

   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 court 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

   Racquets and balls
   Racquets and balls

   The rules and scoring are similar to those of lawn tennis, which
   derives from court 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 2½ inch (64 mm) 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 2½ ounces (71
   grams). The 27 inch (686 mm) 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 court tennis court (jeu à dedans) is a very substantial building (a
   larger area than a lawn tennis court, with walls and a ceiling to
   contain all but the highest lob shots). It is enclosed by walls on all
   sides, three of which have sloping roofs (known as "penthouses") with
   various openings, and a buttress ( tambour) off which shots may be
   played. The courts (except at Falkland Palace, a jeu quarré design)
   share the same basic layout but have slightly different dimensions. The
   courts are about 110 by 39 feet (33.5 × 11.9 m) including the
   penthouses, or about 96 by 32 feet (29.3 × 9.8 m) 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 (the "service" end) 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 (i.e. gaining
   a "chase" which ensures a change of end), 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 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 (called "forces") coming from the
   receiving (called the "hazard") 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.

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, (for selfe disport),
          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 (1824) 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 (1964) by Jeremy Potter is a thriller-detective story
   featuring court 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 (including Tennis
   and Oxford (1994)), and was himself an accomplished player of the game,
   winning the World Amateur Over-60s Championship in 1986.

   The First Beautiful Game: Stories of Obsession in Real Tennis (2006) by
   top amateur player Roman Krznaric contains a mixture of real tennis
   history, memoir and fiction, which focuses on what can be learned from
   court tennis about the art of living.

   In Act I - Scene II of William Shakespeare's " King Henry V"; the
   Dauphin, a French Prince, sends King Henry a gift of tennis-balls, out
   of jest, in response to Henry's claim to the French throne. King Henry
   replies to the French Ambassadors: "His present and your pains we thank
   you for: When we have matched our rackets to these balls, we will, in
   France, by God's grace, play a set [that] shall strike his father's
   crown into the hazard ... And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his
   hath turn'd his balls to gun stones".

Tennis in film

   Court 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 (1973) and Ever After 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. The Showtime series The Tudors (2007) portrays
   Henry the VIII playing the game.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_tennis"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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