For those who have never heard of it, been to a court or seen the game played, the above is my standard gambit for explaining the sport that is Real Tennis. And unless your uncle, work colleague, etc plays it (distinctly unlikely), you live near a court (hugely improbable), your school had one (close to a zero chance) or you’ve been to Hampton Court, UK, birthplace of King Henry VIII, there’s no reason why indeed you should have heard of this exclusive game. Its limited awareness is mostly due to the fact that there are only forty seven working courts in the world, all on the majority, only open to private club members of a more ‘elitist’ social demographic. On this side, it’s deemed pretty much a snobby / upper class pastime, therefore the priveleged immerse themselves in it. Furthermore, its spiritual home is in decidedly patrician venues including Queens Club in West London, Lords Cricket Ground, Royal Melbourne Tennis Club and various country houses constructed by the English Victorian aristocracy. But it’s Hampton Court, originally built for Charles I in 1630 where most realise the birth place and original heritage of the game and what a legacy it is.
Inaugurated by kings, but not quite the sport of kings, that title goes to racing, history records that ‘Royal Tennis’ (what the Ozzies call it), ‘Court Tennis’ (the Seppo’s name) or ‘Jeau de Paume’ (Yep, the French) was one of the few pastimes that kept the monarchs away from horses and hunting. Henry VIII, greedy in all things, had no fewer than four courts in one household alone, while Kings of France, Spain and Scotland all managed to die in various circumstances on Real Tennis courts.
Of the forty seven courts in day to day use around the world today, eight were built in the last ten years and another four were brought back into play. The current situation is that there are twenty six in the UK, four in France, eleven for the States and here in Australia, there are three in Melbourne, one in Ballarat, one in Sydney and one in Hobart. So, the ancient game, the actual forerunner to lawn tennis, is enjoying perhaps its foremost boom since the Victorian era, nothing to the five hundred or more in pre French revolutionary Paris, but it’s still a game that has outlasted kingdoms, empires and continues to serve the higher echelons of society.
As the opening statement says, the game itself is a hybrid of lawn tennis and squash, combined with the tactics and decision making of backgammon or chess. The court is littered with penthouses, obstacles such as the ‘tambour’, (which makes the ball kick out at strange angles) and targets. The latter have names such as the ‘grill’, ‘winning gallery’ and the ‘deadans’ which are all goals in essence (like in soccer), where if you hit or land them ‘in’, you win that particular point outright instantly. Confused? We’ve only just started…
Bizarrely, the court is no mirror image of itself as in squash or tennis. The servers end is totally different in layout to the receivers end and more complex still, the dimensions of the court change during play. This is due to the ancient scoring system of ‘chases’ that Real Tennis uses, where in essence, the baseline moves forward and back according to the outcome of previous rallies. You can breathe a slight sigh of relief in trying to understand all this, as the actual scoring system is familiar to anyone who has played tennis I.e. 15-love, 15 all, 40-15, deuce, advantage, etc. However, the scoring can be modified by a handicapping system which allows players of different standards to have a competitive (similar to giving someone shots in golf) match.
If all this sounds complicated, as a player, you’ve now got to try and hit a hard, heavily spun ball skidding off the wall and floor back over the net. The ball itself is nearly as hard as a cricket ball, but wrapped in a similar green felt to a tennis ball. The racket, three foot in length and totally wooden, has a head about the size of a piece of A4 paper, but a squashed oval shape. One manufacturer, Grays of Cambridge make all the rackets, yes every single Real Tennis player on the planet has the same racket, and all the balls are hand made by the one hundred and fifty or so registered professionals, who work at the courts across the Continents.
Participated by men and women of all ages (you will find seventy and eighty year olds regularly competing two to three times a week), your ‘standard’ player definitely has and needs the economic wealth to be able to fund this relatively pricey hobby. Being a member at places like the Queens club in London, the New York rackets club, the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club and the Boston Tennis & Racquet Club don’t come for a lazy few dollars and this is the added exclusive / aristocratic dynamic. They all have steep joining-on fees, serious annual subscriptions and then you’ve got to throw on top the actual court charges. It all adds up.
However, times are a changing. The most recent development, the Millennium Court at the Burroughs Club in Hendon, London is not only the most public friendly set up, but also the most technologically advanced ever. As long as the court isn’t booked up by any of the members, anyone can come in off the street and give it a go. Basically, they are trying to get as many new people into this ‘noble’ game as possible. The newcomers can also try out the inspired facilities which include under floor heating, rain sensitive roof windows, humungously large and powerful showerheads and the most forward thinking and stunningly architectured real tennis court on the globe.
Although the best court in the globe may be in the UK, you’ll be pleased to read the premier player in the world is an Australian. Tasmanian Rob Fahey has been the World Champion and number one for the past twelve years and is regarded as the finest player ever to play the game. Massive compliment indeed when you consider the rich history this game has. One final thing. Similar to that when playing lawn tennis at Wimbledon, Real Tennis players are only ever allowed to wear all-white on court. That’s just the rules and regulations from way back when, no questions asked.