Real tennis

The 2+1⁄2-inch (64 mm) diameter balls are handmade and consist of a core made of cork with fabric tape tightly wound around it, compacted by outer windings of string, and covered with a hand-sewn layer of heavy, woven, woollen cloth, traditionally Melton cloth (not felt, which is unwoven and not strong enough to last as a ball covering).

The balls were traditionally white, but around the end of the 20th century "optic yellow" was introduced for improved visibility, as had been done years earlier in lawn tennis.

The racquet is oval-shaped to make it easier to strike balls close to the floor or in corners, and to facilitate a fast shot with a low trajectory that is difficult for an opponent to return.

More recently, Harrow Sports has introduced graphite rackets which are not currently permitted by the rules of the game, but are being trialled at the club level.

Unlike lawn tennis, at least one foot must be grounded during the service, but the player may serve from anywhere in the court between the dedans wall and the second gallery line.

These are: The heavy, solid balls take a great deal of spin, which often causes them to rebound from the walls at unexpected angles.

Players at the hazard end will generally try to hit the ball as deep into the court as possible to lay difficult chases and recover the serve.

The role of the marker is to mark the position of chases, call service faults, record the score and manage the conduct of the players.

As the game is small, most professionals are also trained markers, hence it is not uncommon to see players in a tournament marking other matches in the same draw, even at the elite level.

[21] The term "tennis" is thought to derive from the French word tenez, which means "take heed" – a warning from the server to the receiver.

This game may have been played by monks in monastery cloisters, but the construction and appearance of courts more resemble medieval courtyards and streets than religious buildings.

[24] In France, François I (1515–47) was an enthusiastic player and promoter of real tennis, building courts and encouraging play among both courtiers and commoners.

The first known book about tennis, Trattato del Giuoco della Palla was written during his reign, in 1555, by an Italian priest, Antonio Scaino da Salo.

Two French kings supposedly died from tennis-related episodes – Louis X of a severe chill after playing and Charles VIII after striking his head on the lintel of a door leading to the court in the royal Château at Amboise.

[25] The game thrived among the 17th-century nobility in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the Habsburg Empire, but suffered under English Puritanism, as it was heavily associated with gambling.

By the Age of Napoleon, the royal families of Europe were besieged and real tennis, a court game, was largely abandoned.

An epitaph in St Michael's Church, Coventry, written circa 1705 read, in part:[27] Here lyes an old toss'd Tennis Ball: Was racketted, from spring to fall, With so much heat and so much hast, Time's arm for shame grew tyred at last.

Real tennis courts were built in Hobart, Tasmania (1875) and in the United States, starting in 1876 in Boston, and in New York in 1890, and later at athletic clubs in several other cities.

A forgotten master of designing, building and restoring real tennis courts was the British Fulham-based builder, Joseph Bickley (1835–1923).

[29][30] Examples of his surviving work include: The Queen's Club, Lord's, Hampton Court Palace, Jesmond Dene, Newmarket, Moreton Hall, Warwickshire and Petworth House.

There is currently no formalised structure for the women's events, with each Open championship being organised independently by the relevant national governing body.

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 title alludes to a shot that hits "the nick" (where the wall meets the floor), called "dead" because it then bounces very little and is frequently unreturnable.

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.

In The Chase by Ivor P. Cooper, in Ring of Fire II in the 1632 series, up-timers Heather Mason and Judy Wendell learn the sport from Thomas Hobbes.

Sudden Death (2013), a novel by Alvaro Enrigue, is interstitched throughout with descriptions of a real tennis match between the Italian artist Caravaggio and the Spanish poet Quevedo.

Real tennis is featured in the film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a fictional meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud.

One of the film's plot points turns on Freud playing a grudge match with a Prussian nobleman (in lieu of a duel).

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 film The Man Who Knew Infinity features a short sequence of G. H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons) and John Edensor Littlewood (Toby Jones) playing real tennis.