Court Tennis

This is unquestionably one of the oldest of all ball games. Its origin is obscure, but it came from Italy, through France, to England in the Middle Ages; and we find it in Spain and Germany, as well as in America. The game unquestionably began by striking a ball with the hand, then the gloved hand, then a short-handled bat, and finally the long handled racket. Court tennis is played in a rectangular walled court over which a sloping roof, penthouse, extends on three sides to an inner wall 7 ft. high. The pa age is 7 feet wide. Opposite the long penthouse is the main wall, in which a projection, called the tambour, deflects the ball acro the court. In the inner wall below the penthouse there are several openings, the one at the end on the service side being called the dedans, the others the galleries. At the further end is a square opening near the main wall called the grille. The court is 96 ft. by 32. A net, 5 ft. high at the ends, 3 at the middle, divides it in half. The server stands at the dedans end of the court and knocks the ball with his racket so that it falls on the penthouse or the wall above it and bounds back within a space beyond the IMG:content-1008.png:[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]