By Grace Romund (Contributor) – Email
Date Posted: September 28, 2011
Print Edition: September 21, 2011
Although racquet sports may not be of great interest to some, one would be hard pressed to find someone who had never heard of the sport of tennis. However, if you add a simple and yet misleading adjective before the word ‘tennis’ you’re in a whole other court.
Real tennis is a sport originating in France in the 16th century. When real tennis first came into popularity it was promoted mainly by the French monarchy, followed by the English monarchy. As a result of the royal interest, it came to be known as a ‘sport of kings’. And because everyone wants to be just like the royals, the sport caught on. At the peak of its popularity there were over 250 real tennis courts in Paris alone. In England, it was Henry VIII who made the sport a success. The court that he had built in the early 1500s at Hampton Court Palace is still in existence and is the oldest real tennis court in England today. Real tennis is comparable to the tennis played by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, but with some distinct differences. As previously stated, it is a racquet sport, but the racquets used look like something one might find in their grandparents attic – all wood with twine for strings and slightly warped. Real tennis balls are made out of cork and fabric tape wound tightly into a ball. A real tennis court is indoors and is larger than a normal tennis court. Although most sports standardize official playing court and field sizes and specifications real tennis players all march to the beat of their own drums and nearly every real tennis court has different dimensions entirely. Real tennis players are also not very interested in symmetry either; each end of the court is different in shape and each side is different too.
Real tennis players are likely the only jocks in the world who pay such close attention to semantics. If you were to ask a real tennis player what sport he or she plays the response would simply be ‘tennis’. What is widely regarded by most as just tennis is ‘lawn tennis’ to real tennis players. To the elitist real tennis player, lawn tennis is the dorky younger brother of real tennis. Real tennis is also called something different depending on where you are: in the United States it’s known as court tennis, in Australia it’s known as royal tennis, and in France it’s known as courte-paume.
There are only 47 real tennis courts left today. It is still regarded as a ‘sport of kings’ and is even more exclusive than it was at its inception. There are only two small companies in the world that produce real tennis equipment, and one is run by four old men in a small English village who have been the primary suppliers of real tennis equipment around the world for many decades. If you decide to take up the sport you will automatically be in the world rankings because so few play.
