Court and Equipment
The court is 110 feet long by 38 feet wide above the penthouses, with a concrete floor, walls of brick or stone, and a ceiling 30 feet above the floor. Because the size and shape of the penthouses vary somewhat from court to another, the actual playing area isn't definitely fixed, but it's about 96 by 32.
The court is divided into halves, the service side and the hazard side, by a net, which is 5 feet high at each end and 3 feet high in the middle.
The court in many ways resembles the medieval courtyard in which the sport was originally played. Along one long wall and both short walls runs the penthouse, a shed with a roof that slopes from a height of 10 feet 7 inches, to 7 feet 1½ inches; it is 7 feet in depth. The tambour, a sloping buttress, reduces the width of the court at the hazard end to 30 feet 2 inches. Set in a short wall above the tambour is the grille, a window 3 feet, 1 inch square. The grille is one of several net-covered openings in the walls. The dedans, at the service end, is 21 feet 8 inches wide, and has a roof that slopes from 6 feet 10 inches to 3 feet 3 inches. Set in the penthouse are a number of openings called galleries.
The ball is 2¼ inches in diameter and weighs about 2½ ounces. It is made of strips of cloth wound tightly together, tied with twine, and covered with white melton cloth. The ball used in France is somewhat livelier than that used in England, and the American ball is somewhere between the two.
The racket is about 27 inches long and weighs about 16 ounces. Its head is rather pear-shaped, about 9 by 6 inches, and is curved upward, to enable a player to put a good deal of "cut" on the ball. It is strung with heavy gut.
Progress of Play
Scoring in court tennis is similar to scoring in lawn tennis. The chief difference is that, to win a set in a three-set match, a player needs to win eight games. However, in a five-set match, a player needs to win only six games to win a set, as in lawn tennis. Court tennis usually uses the "vantage" system, as in lawn tennis; that is, a player must have a two-game advantage over his adversary to win a set.
The method of play is quite different, however. The server always serves from the service side of the net, toward the hazard side, and the serve must hit the side penthouse and fall into the service area, which is marked by a service line, 21 feet 1 inches from the grille wall, and a pass line, 7 feet 8 inches from the main wall.
A player scores a point by hitting the ball into the grille, the dedans, or the winning gallery, or when the opponent hits the ball into the net or out of the court. The ball can be played off the walls, and a shot is out of court only if it strikes a wall above the play line, which is 18 feet above the floor at the sides and 23 feet above the floor at the ends of the court.
The really unique feature of court tennis is the chase, which puts the premium on skill as opposed to force. A player is supposed to return the ball before it bounces twice; failing that, however, the player doesn't lose the point. A chase results; the point is, in effect, postponed until one player has a score of 40 (as in lawn tennis' 15-30-40 scoring system) or until there are two chases to be played.
Suppose, for example, that Player A fails to return a shot which bounces for the second time 1 yard from the wall. The umpire calls, "Chase-1 yard." When it is time to play off the chase, the players change sides. Every shot that Player A makes during the play-off must be hit so that the ball will take its second bounce within 1 yard of the wall. If Player B sees that a shot by A isn't going to travel far enough, B can let it go and thereby wins the point. Player A can win a point in this play-off only through an error by B, or by making a shot into the dedans or the winning gallery.
The series of chase lines on the court help the referee make the decision as to how a chase should be played. Shots into a gallery other than the winning gallery also result in a chase, and specific chase lines are marked for gallery shots.