Anyone for (Real) Tennis?

For a game that began in grubby medieval alleyways, real tennis has really come up in the world! Over the centuries this basic ballgame, played by hand, became a highly competitive, sophisticated racket sport enjoyed by kings (and many others), with complex rules and elaborate, custom-built courts, such as the one at Hampton Court.

You might have been into the Royal Tennis Court at Hampton Court, and if you were lucky, you will have witnessed club players enjoying a game, playing to rules that Henry VIII would have recognised. To the uninitiated, real tennis appears to be a peculiar combination of lawn tennis, squash and padel, played with asymmetric, rigid rackets (based on the shape of a hand) and a hard, felt-covered ball. 

The origins of the medieval street game can still be seen in the physical features of the enclosed court today, with its overhanging ledges and wooden balconies. Medieval players would once have bounced a ball off sloping roofs or the buttresses of castle walls, or even cloisters! (The game was, surprisingly, very popular with monks). It became quite a craze and was once banned in Italy as the game was thought to be encouraging gambling and distracting too many  people from their daily work!

The first tennis court at Hampton Court Palace was constructed some time before 1530, probably for Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII’s  chief minister. Henry himself was a keen and talented player who spent hours on court. In 1519, the Venetian Ambassador wrote: ‘it was the prettiest thing in the world to see him play; his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture’. At Hampton Court, Henry built a new tennis play (the Tudor word for court) during 1531-3, where he reportedly lost vast sums gambling on his own matches and those of his courtiers.