The ancestral indoor court game from which lawn tennis evolved, played on an asymmetric court with sloped roofs and odd angles.
Origin and rules
Real tennis, also called court tennis or jeu de paume, took shape in monastic cloisters in 12th-century France. Players use a teardrop-shaped wooden racquet to hit a heavy cork-cored ball around a complex asymmetric court.
How it plays
The court features sloped penthouses, openings, and a hazard side. Scoring uses 15, 30, 40, and game, and reaches sets of six games. Service must bounce off the penthouse roof, and chase points add a unique tactical layer.
Competition
The World Championship is the oldest continuously contested championship in any sport, dating to 1740. Only a few dozen courts remain worldwide, mostly in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and the United States.
Find more sports by letter
Real Tennis starts with R and ends with S. Browse other sports along the same letter.
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