Remember, while playing, certain general principles. Don’t “fix” yourself. Keep the knees a little bent, and your weight thrown forward and on both feet, so that you can start in any direction. If the feet are parallel it is impossible to start quickly. Always keep moving, even if you do not intend to go anywhere. Play quietly and steadily without any flourish, and try to win every stroke. A great many players seem unable to keep steadily at work, and play a careless or slashing stroke every now and then. This is a great mistake, and one often loses a great deal by it. Try to acquire a habit of playing hard all the time. The racket should be carried in both hands, for, if you let it hang down, more time will be needed to get it across your body. Never cut nor twist a ball except in service; it tends to make the ball travel more slowly, and will deceive nobody. The underhand stroke puts a little twist on the ball, but it is an over twist and not a side one. Try to meet the ball fairly, i.e., to bring the racket against it in the line of its flight; or, in other words, don’t hit across the ball.
Watch carefully your own weak points. Any good player ought to be able to show them to you, and you should then try to improve your game where it is weak. If you practise carefully and your only object is to learn, there is no reason why you should not get into the second class. To be among the very best players requires physical advantages, as well as a stout heart and great interest in the game. One is often advised to pretend to put a ball in one place and then to put it in another. I can assure you that it does not pay. Too many strokes are lost by it. Exactly the same thing is true about pretending to go to one side and then coming back again. One is apt to get off one’s balance in making such a feint, and it is quite hard enough to get into position for a ball without having to start the wrong way first.
It is well to observe the rules carefully in practice, or else they may distract one’s attention in a match. This is especially true of the service. Frequently foot-faulting in a match spoils your service altogether. In practice you should always see that the net is at the right height, and should always use good balls. It is bad practice, and is also very unsatisfactory, to play with bad balls. When the weather is too bad to use good balls it is too bad to play at all.
CHAPTER II.
THE COURT AND IMPLEMENTS OF THE GAME.
The court is 78 ft. long. It is 27 ft. wide for the single game, and 36 ft. for the double game. At most club-grounds a measuring-chain is used to mark out the court, but for a private court a chain is seldom at hand. The easiest way to mark out a court without a chain is to use two long measures. Select the place for the net; then measure 36 ft. across; at each end put in a peg, and over each peg slip the ring of a measure. On one measure take 39 ft., and on the other 53 ft. ¾ in.; pull both taut, and the place where the two ends meet will be one corner of the court. Put in a peg at 21 ft. from the net for the end of the service-line. Next transpose the measures and repeat the same process. This will give the other corner of the court, and at 21 ft. will be the other end of the service-line, and one half of your court is ready. Take exactly the same measures on the other side of the net, and the measurement of your court is complete. The side-lines of the single court are made by marking off 4 ft. 6 in. from each end of the base-lines, and running lines parallel to the side-lines of the double court from one base-line to the other. Everything necessary is thus found except the central-line, which runs from the middle of one service-line to the middle of the other. The posts of the net stand 3 ft. outside of the side-lines. If the court is intended for double play only, the inner side-lines need not be carried farther from the net than the service-lines. If a single court only is to be marked out, the diagonal is about 47 ft. 5 in., instead of 53 ft. ¾ in.
Net.—The net should be bound along the top with heavy white cotton or duck, to the depth of two or three inches. Without this binding it is very difficult to see the top of the net in a bad light. The most important points in a net are that the meshes should be too small to allow a ball to pass through them, and that the twine should not be so large as to obstruct the view of the opposite court.
Shoes.—There is little to say about shoes, although one’s comfort depends a great deal on them. They should be a little too large, with the toes square or round, but never pointed. Those made of buckskin, with leather straps over the toes, are the most comfortable. For the soles no rubber compares with steel points—i.e., small nails about five-eighths of an inch long, driven into the sole of the shoe, and protruding from it about one-quarter to three-eighths of an inch. Points injure the ground less than rubber, as to a great degree they prevent slipping. For gravel or asphalt the best soles are made of very soft red rubber, which lasts a long time and is very easy to the feet.
Balls.—Ayres’s balls are used at every tournament of importance in England, and, while this is the case, it is necessary for tournament players to practise with them, though those of some other manufacturers are quite as good for ordinary play.