Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/659

Rh strings. The winner takes the service side, service being an advantage. He serves from any part of the court, and in any way he thinks best, and the ball must go over the net, strike the side penthouse, and fall into the service-court (see “Fault” and “Pass”). His opponent (“ striker-out ”) tries to return the ball over the net before it has touched the ground a second time; he may volley or half-volley it. For a stroke to be “good” it must be made before the second bound of the ball, and the ball must go over the net (even if it touches it), and must not strike the wall above the play-line, nor touch the roof or rafters. The first point to be attained is to be sure of getting the ball over the net, the next to do so in such a way as to defeat the opposing player's attempt to make a “good” stroke in return.

It often happens that a player, either intentionally or from inability, does not take or touch a ball returned to him over the net. In this event, chiefly on the service side, a “chase” (in Italian caccia, in French chasse) is made, the goodness or the badness of which 'depends upon the spot on the floor which the ball touches next after its first bound. The nearer this spot is to the end wall the better the chase. The chase lines are numbered, being one yard apart, the shorter lines representing the half-distance. The chases are noted and called by the marker. Thus if a ball fell on the line marked 4, he would call “chase four”; if between 4 and 3, he would call “Better than four” if it fell nearer to 4 than the short line, and “Worse than three” if it fell on the short line or between the short line and 3; for if the ball fall on a line the striker is credited with the better stroke. Strokes into the galleries and doors, with the exception of the winning gallery (last gallery, hazard side) count as chases. The making, or, in technical language, the “laying down” of a chase does not immediately affect the score: it has to be won first, i.e. the other player tries to make a better chase; if he fails, the original maker wins. For this purpose after two chases have been laid down (or one, if either player's score is at 40) the players change sides, e.g. if X has been serving and Y has laid down two chases, Y becomes the server and tries to defend them, X to win them by making the ball fall nearer to the back wall after its first bound than Y did. Either player wins the chase if he “finds” (i.e. hits the ball into) one of the winning openings, or if his opponent fails to make a good return. The winner of the chase scores a point. The chases are played off in the order in which they are made. Should X in trying to win a chase make the same chase as Y originally laid down, the chase is off and neither side scores. In France the chase is played again. The “rest” goes on till one of the players fails to make a good return, or deliberately leaves the ball alone in order that his opponent may lay down a chase (a procedure to be followed at the discretion of a player in whose judgment the chase will be a bad one), or lose a chase already laid down and in the course of being played off. Either player can score, there being no “hand-in” or “hand-out” as at racquets. A point is scored by that player whose opponent fails to make a good return stroke in a rest, or who strikes the ball into a winning opening, or wins a chase, or to whom two faults are served in succession. A player loses a stroke who strikes the ball twice, or allows it to touch himself or his clothes.

“He who would excel as a tennis-player must learn to serve,” is the dictum of an amateur champion, but the necessary variations, the difference between the “railroad” and the “giraffe,” &c., can only be explained by an experienced player and in the court. Variety is all-important, as is the knowledge of what sort of service is most valuable in defending a particular chase. All service should be heavily “cut.” For the winning of hazard-side chases, indeed for all purposes, the “nick” service is useful, the endeavour being I to make the service drop at the nick of the grille-wall and the floor. In attem ting this service it should be remembered that it is better for tfie ball to hit the floor first than the wall as this allows the cut to act. It is wise to cultivate one sort of service to perfection, if possible, with a reserve of others to suit the occasion. Again, the tennis “stroke,” differing essentially as it does from the racquet stroke, can only be learnt in the court from a good teacher; but it is an axiom that tennis is not a game in which ard lnttmg necessarily tells, though force may be usefully employed in trying to “find” the winning openings. This, however, is an important point of etiquette-it is not “correct” to force for the dedans when the striker is close to the net, unless the force is “boasted” or there is no danger of hitting his opponent. In some clubs such a stroke is forbidden by a by-law. Some modern players play a faster and harder game than their predecessors, who considered strokes “on the floor,” 'l.e. carefully judged chases, to be the true feature of the ame; but in any case the beginner should remember that it is better to save his breath and to trust to winning an easy chase by-and-by than to run after a hard-hit stroke, which if left alone would leave “chase the door” or “second gallery” to be played for afterwards. Similarly in defending a chase, he should remember during the rest what that chase is, and not endeavour to return a stroke which would have lost it. Chases act as breathing-spaces, especially to the player who can trust to his skill “on the floor,” and these, together with good service, form the reason why men can play tennis, and play it well, at a time of life when cricket, racquets and other active games have to be abandoned.

History.—Tennis may well be called a royal game, having been popular with various kings of England and France, though it is fanciful to connect it with Homer's Nausicaa, princess of Phaeacia (Odyss. vi. II 5), who is represented by him as throwing, and not as hitting the ball to her maids of honour. In the ball-games of the Greeks and Romans we may see the rudiments of the French jeu de paume, which is undoubtedly the ancestor of modern tennis in a direct line. The origin of the name is quite obscure. Some give a numerical derivation from the fact that la langue paume was played by ten players, five on each side; others regard it as a corruption of tamis (sieve), for in a form of la paume the server bounced the ball on a sieve and then struck it: there is no possible reason for connecting “tennis” with the term Tenois, or Senois; most probable is the derivation from Tenez! (Take it! Playl), especially when we remember the large number of French terms that adhere to the game, e.g., grille, lambour (drum, from the sound on the board that formed the face of that buttress) and dedans. Further, a poem dealing with the game, written in Latin elegiacs by R. Frissart, makes the striker cry “Excipe!” (Take it!) after each stroke: this seems to correspond with the custom which enjoins the racquet-marker to call “Play” whenever a legitimate stroke has been made.

Tennis Racquet.

In the “Alexiad” of Anna Comnena (about 1120) is a reference to a game played on horseback in which a staff, curved at the end and strung with strings of plaited gut, was used. This game was played in a court called “a court for goff (sic)” (according to the Lexicon of Alexandrine Greek), and some similar game, corrupted through tchangan into chicane, was played in France. In 1300 the game was also known as La boude. Throughout the century indeed it was played in France and by the highest in the land: thus Louis X. died from a chill contracted after playing; Charles V. was devoted to the game, though he vainly tried to stop it as a pastime for the lower classes; Charles VI. watched the game from the room where he was confined during his attack of insanity, and Du Guesclin amused himself with it during the siege of Dinan. In England the game, or some form of it, was known, Chaucer possibly alluding to it in the words “But canstow playen racket to and fro”; and hand-ball, which may have been either tennis or cricket, was proscribed with other games by Edward III. in 1365. In France the game was prohibited to priests in 1245, and also in 1485, 1512 and 1673. In 1427 we hear of a woman named Margot, who was a skilful player, both her fore handed and backhanded strokes being commended; hence we may infer that the racquet had now been introduced. Tennis was at this time frequently played in some crude form in the moats of castles, where Charles VIII. used to watch the game. Henri II. is described as the best