Inside Points on Building and Maintaining a Private Tennis Court

Now that the Great War is practically over, until the next one begins there isn’t very much that you can do with that large plot of ground which used to be your war-garden.  It is too small for a running-track and too large for nasturtiums.  Obviously, the only thing left is a tennis-court.

One really ought to have a tennis-court of one’s own.  Those at the Club are always so full that on Saturdays and Sundays the people waiting to play look like the gallery at a Davis Cup match, and even when you do get located you have two sets of balls to chase, yours and those of the people in the next court.

The first thing is to decide among yourselves just what kind of court it is to be.  There are three kinds:  grass, clay, and corn-meal.  In Maine, gravel courts are also very popular.  Father will usually hold out for a grass court because it gives a slower bounce to the ball and Father isn’t so quick on the bounce as he used to be.  All Mother insists on is plenty of headroom.  Junior and Myrtis will want a clay one because you can dance on a clay one in the evening.  The court as finished will be a combination grass and dirt, with a little golden-rod late in August.

A little study will be necessary before laying out the court.  I mean you can’t just go out and mark a court by guess-work.  You must first learn what the dimensions are supposed to be and get as near to them as is humanly possible.  Whereas there might be a slight margin for error in some measurements, it is absolutely essential that both sides are the same length, otherwise you might end up by lobbing back to yourself if you got very excited.

The worst place to get the dope on how to arrange a tennis-court is in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  The article on TENNIS was evidently written by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  It begins by explaining that in America tennis is called “court tennis.”  The only answer to that is, “You’re a cock-eyed liar!” The whole article is like this.

The name “tennis,” it says, probably comes from the French “Tenez!” meaning “Take it!  Play!” More likely, in my opinion, it is derived from the Polish “Tinith!” meaning “Go on, that was not outside!”

During the Fourteenth Century the game was played by the highest people in France.  Louis X died from a chill contracted after playing.  Charles V was devoted to it, although he tried in vain to stop it as a pastime for the lower classes (the origin of the country-club); Charles VI watched it being played from the room where he was confined during his attack of insanity and Du Guesclin amused himself with it during the siege of Dinan.  And, although it doesn’t say so in the Encyclopaedia, Robert C. Benchley, after playing for the first time in the season of 1922, was so lame under the right shoulder-blade that he couldn’t lift a glass to his mouth.