READY TO "SERVE."
The broad line across the middle of the diagram is where the net goes. If any one of the party knows how to make a net with a two-inch mesh, so much the better; but most of my readers will prefer to buy one, I think. The net is twenty-four feet long and four feet wide, and is fastened to posts, about five feet high, at each side of the court. The posts are supported on the outer side by "guy-ropes" fastened to stakes driven into the ground, while the strain of the net between the posts supports them on the inner side. And now that the court is marked out, and the net pitched, we have everything ready except the bats and balls.
The bat, or racquet, is a very pretty piece of workmanship, and I dare not venture to hope that the cleverest of my readers could make one, so we will assume that, even if everything else is home-made, the racquet must be bought. And so, indeed, must the balls; but a hollow India rubber ball of about two and a half inches diameter is so well known to all boys that we may dismiss it with the remark that it is as well to have at least two balls at hand in a game, to save time.
The game may be played by either two or four persons. In the latter case each pair will play as partners on each side of the net. The one who strikes the ball first (and this is decided by agreement) is called the "server." Standing with one foot outside the line at the end of the right-hand court, and the other foot inside the court (position marked A in diagram), the server strikes the ball so that it falls in the court diagonally opposite him, just over the net at B, where a player on the other side will be waiting to receive it. After the ball has bounced once, the player must strike it over the net, and it must be returned from one side of the net to the other until some one fails to do so properly. One partner plays in the inner court and the other in the outer one, and after the "service" and the first return, either of the players may return the ball to any part of their opponents' court, according as it pitches nearer to one than to the other. When a player fails to return the ball properly, it counts one for the other side, and the server begins again from his old position, except that he must serve from the left-hand court this time if he served from the right-hand court last.
Counting.—A game consists of four "points." It counts against one side, and in favor of the other,
1. When the server makes two "faults" in succession. (A "fault" is the failure of the server to send the ball into the proper court.)
2. When a player does not return the ball over the net.
3. When a player sends the ball so far that it falls outside the court.
4. When a player allows the ball to strike the ground more than once before he returns it.