History of the Game
Real tennis is the original racquet sport from which the modern game of lawn tennis, or tennis, is descended. Real tennis is still played at a small number of active courts in the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and France.
It is also known as:
- “court tennis” (America)
- jeu de paume (France)
- and formerly called “royal tennis” (Australia)
The term real tennis is often thought to be a corruption of this last name and related to the game’s connection with royalty during its heyday in England and France in the 16th and 17th centuries. In fact “real” was first used at the end of the 19th century as a retronym to distinguish it from the then recently invented game of lawn tennis. Real tennis players often just call it “tennis,” describing the modern game as “lawn tennis.”
