."Beneath a thin veneer of poise and civility, all our hidden aggression, love, lust, hate, exaltation, and degradation are just waiting to be acted out via racket, on well-lined courts. As a metaphor for life, tennis in nonpareil." - Jay Jennings, Tennis and the Meaning of Life
In court tennis, the game depends on a player's ability to create a "chase" after the ball bounces a second time.
Each court is slightly different, one reason that court tennis players, like golfers, say they like to travel to new clubs. The quirkiness of each court makes all the difference!
Court on Canvas: Tennis in Art celebrates the origins of the game in Birmingham and explores the ways in which tennis has inspired artists from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. The book guides us from the origins of the game as a genteel pastime for the upper classes, through its codification as a sport, to the international high-earning power game of today. It illustrates the changes in fashion associated with the sport and the important role tennis played in the emancipation of women in the early part of the twentieth century. The book contains a survey of images of tennis in art from the 1870s onwards, and detailed examinations of the works are placed in a wider social, historical, and art historical context.
"Courts are for love and volley. No one minds the cruel ellipse of serve and return, dancing white galliardes at tape or net till point, on the wire's tip, or the long burning arc to nethercourt marks game and set." -Margaret Avison
Tennis parties were once a common feature of social life everywhere from Trent Park in North London to Florida and the French Riviera, and artist Sir John Lavery (1856-1941) was there to record them all with slightly cloying charm.
Forget the LBD, this season it's all about the LWD (little white dress!)
As the days of lawn tennis and strawberries arrive, no tennis wardrobe is complete without that little white tennis dress.
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Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and widely considered the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in London since 1877 and has the strictest dress code of all the major Grand Slam tennis tournaments.The players must wear white. All white. It's tradition.
"The All-England Club, where the tournament is played, takes this rule very seriously. The dress code dates back to the 1800s, when tennis was played at social gatherings. The sight of sweat spots through colored clothing was thought unseemly, especially for women, and "tennis whites" became an institution.
Wimbledon has carried on this strong tradition, even after the US Open allowed colored clothing in 1972. And the dress code has only gotten more strict in recent years."
Tennis is an extraordinary sport and obsession that's been around since the 16th century. Its stories can be philosophical, whimsical or even profane. If you love history as much as you love tennis, this page will be an unending source of pleasure.
