The Games We Play

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21248, 30 July 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Games We Play

.Tennis is often called the "royal game " because for centuries it was one of the favourite pastimes of the kings of England and France. It is one of the oldest ball games in the world. Most of us play lawn tennis, which has grown out of tennis. Now more people play lawn tennis, in every part of the world, than any other ball game. Tennis goes back so far that nobody really knows in which country it; was started. Some think it began in Ancient Egypt and was continued in the ball games of the Greeks and Romans. The Arabs, too, seem to have had a game something like it. No doubt it came to our country from France, when English kings had great possessions there. The name probably comes from the French word i' Tenez!" or, as we should say, " Play!" So long ago as 600 years the French kings were devoted to tennis, and one Df them died from a chill he caught after playing. Most of them kept many servants lo look after the courts. King Henry 11. >f France was said to be the finest player

How They

in the land and worthy of the silver ball given to the best players. In England for a time it was forbidden. but King Henry VII. was very fond of the game, and so he cancelled all the rules against it. Many wealthy people had their own courts laid out, and three cenluries ago it was fashionable for the members of society to play. Henry VIII. was fond of all kinds of sport, and lie had a court built at Hampton Court. This famous court is still used. The great difference between lawn tennis and tenuis is that in the latter the court has walls all round it and that these play a big part in the game. It is said that the very first game of " lawn tennis " in England was played at Lullingstone Castle, in Kent, in 1873. Some lines were drawn on the grass cf the lawn and a net was placed across the centre. In this way the first lawn tennis court was made. At first everybody played as they wished, but not long afterwards a set of rules was drawn up and so the game as we know it was born. Afterwards it began to be played on hard courts, as well as grass, because in countries like South Africa lawns like our own are scarce.