FALKLAND PALACE ROYAL TENNIS CLUB

Falkland Palace, Fife, Scotland.

A brief introduction to the Royal Game of Tennis.

History of the game.

Tennis is one of a family of ball games, the origins of which are lost in the mists of time – throwing, hitting and catching perhaps a round stone, later a ball, surely being one of man’s earliest sporting instincts.

Tennis began to take shape in the 12^th and 13^th centuries in France, often in the cloisters of monasteries, where it was known as "jeu de paume" ( game of the palm of the hand), before the advent of the racket. By the 16^th century there were hundreds of courts in Paris alone, all different from each other and each presenting unique challenges. From its ecclesiastical origins tennis spread to become the favourite game of the King and his courtiers.

The English word ‘tennis’ is believed to come from the French ‘tenez’, the word used to give warning before a serve in the medieval game.

Tennis in Scotland was originally called ‘caich’, ‘caitch’, or even ‘cache’, all of which were derived indirectly from the French word ‘cachier’ used in the medieval dialect in Picardy meaning to play tennis. (Indeed tennis courts in Scotland were known as ‘caichpules’). References to the game can be found as early as the reign of King Alexander III (1249-86) whose mother Marie of Couci may well have introduced the game to Scotland from France.

Tennis at Falkland.

The tennis court at Falkland Palace is known to be the earliest surviving court in Britain, having been built between 1539 and 1541 for King James V of Scotland. It is a rare example of the ‘jeu quarré’ court which was common in France: a more ‘square’ court, and with some very significant differences in construction (and therefore in the way the game is played), than the ‘jeu à dedans’ court which has survived elsewhere to become the most usual court for the game as played today.

The court was repaired in around 1620, but little record exists of the court for the next two hundred years or so. It had apparently fallen into disrepair by 1892 when major restoration work was instigated by the then Keeper of the Palace, John Patrick Crichton Stuart (Third Marquess of Bute), though the court again fell into disuse until the National Trust for Scotland carried out further significant repairs in time for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1958.

The Falkland Palace Royal Tennis Club has been in existence since 1975; we have around 65 members, but only a small though very enthusiastic core of 10 to 15 frequent players.

The game of Real Tennis.

The description ‘real’ is relatively recent, and is designed to avoid confusion with the other, much more modern game. Tennis is related to the many other games involving balls struck by hand (fives, or palla in Italy for example), basket (as in pelota in various forms in Spain), the forearm (Pallone in Picardy), and racket (rackets and squash – and of course the relatively new game which most people around the world now call tennis). The modern game of tennis was invented in 1873 by Major Wingfield at his home in Wales; his original name for the game was the Greek word Sphairistike, or Lawn Tennis.

Real tennis is played with a heavy wooden racket; it has a small asymmetrical head, shaped like the palm of the hand – a reflection of the game’s origins in ‘jeu de paume’. The ball is solid, about the same size as a lawn tennis ball but heavier, and with a lower bounce: only about 23 per cent as opposed to the 55 per cent rebound of the lawn tennis ball. Tennis balls are usually hand made at other courts, but special balls have to be made for tennis at Falkland to withstand the wear and tear of the stone floor and roughcast walls. The net is two feet lower at the middle than at the sides, thus encouraging the cross-court shot.

There are only about 40 tennis courts in the world; roughly half are in the UK, and the rest are to be found in France, the US and Australia. There is another court in Scotland at Troon, but it has been closed now for several years. None of the courts are exactly the same, but Falkland Palace is very rare in being the only open air court, and in being a ‘jeu quarré’ court: no ‘dedans’ behind the server, and no ‘tambour’ in the main wall. In their place are four ‘lunes’ high up on the back wall, and the ‘ais’, the narrow wooden stave in the corner at the service end. Visiting tennis players will immediately understand how these unique features make the game at Falkland quite different from the one they may be used to.

As you look at the court from the galleries at the side, the service end is to the right of the net (players serve from that end only) and the hazard end is to the left. The galleries are First, Second and Last (from the net) on the service side, and First, Second and Winning Gallery on the hazard side. The opposite wall is called the Main Wall, and the sloping roof above the galleries and at the hazard end is called a penthouse. The gallery nearest the wall at the hazard end (called the grille wall because of the wooden window, the grille, in the corner between it and the main wall) is a winning opening, as is the grille, the lunes and the ais. A ball struck from the opposite end entering or hitting one of these openings will win a point for the striker.

The lines on the court and numbers on the walls correspond either to the galleries, or to the number of yards from the back wall (at the service end) or from the service line (at the hazard end). These marks are vital in determining the chase (see below).

Playing the game.

The game of real tennis is essentially much more about finesse than force. For groundstrokes the ball is struck with the racket head low in order to impart maximum backspin (rather than topspin as in lawn tennis) designed to make the ball keep low and die at the other end of the court. Hitting the ball hard can often result in presenting your opponent with an opportunity for an easy winning return as he plays it off the back wall, or in a poor ‘chase’ (see below).

The service is more about subtlety and spin than speed – and an underarm serve is common. The volley is much used but, with the exception of a volleyed return of serve, more as a defensive than an attacking stroke.

The serve may be made from anywhere in the service end up to the second gallery line, and the ball must at least touch the penthouse on the hazard side and land in the marked area (if not volleyed first) to be a valid serve. The ball is then in play on any of the walls or penthouses, and a rally, or rest, takes place across the net. The ball may be volleyed or struck after it has bounced once on the floor (regardless of how many other surfaces it may hit before or after the floor).

The scoring system is basically the same as for lawn tennis, (15, 30, 40, game) – and there are lots of interesting theories about the origins of those scores, but that’s another story – and it is the score of the player who scored the last point which is called first. The first player to win six games wins the set.

The exception is the chase. If the ball bounces a second time on the floor, irrespective of any walls it may strike before that bounce, or enters one of the side galleries other than the winning gallery, then the player who failed to return the ball before it bounced twice has not lost the point. The point where it bounced for the second time on the floor is marked (with the help of the painted lines) and a chase is called. If the second bounce is for example on the line marked 5, then it is called ‘Chase 5 yards’; if the ball enters the last gallery, it is called ‘Chase the Last Gallery’. The score does not change at that point. Later in the game however, either when the score is game point with one chase or when there are two chases, the players change ends and the player who set the chase has the advantage of only having to ‘defend’ that part of his end of the court nearer his back wall than the chase. In the case of a 5 yard chase therefore, his opponent has to play all his shots so that they are likely to bounce, if left to do so or missed by the receiving player, for the second time nearer to the back wall than the 5 yard mark. Only then is that point won or lost, and the chase provides the only opportunity for the players to change ends, thus giving the advantage of the serve to the player who has been at the hazard end.

Quite simple really!

Much more information about tennis and Falkland Palace can be found in the excellent book ‘The Royal Game’, edited by L.St.J.Butler and P.J.Wordie, published in 1989 to celebrate the 450^th anniversary of the Court at Falkland, which is available at the Palace bookshop.