A set of tennis consists of six games, but if what is called an advantage set be played, two successive games above five games must be won to decide; or in case it should be six games all, two games must still be won on one side to conclude the set.
When the player gives his service in order to begin the set, his adversary is supposed to return the ball, wherever it falls after the first rebound, untouched; for example: if at the figure 1, the chace is called at a yard, that is to say, at a yard from the dedans; this chace remains till a second service is given, and if the player on the service side should let the ball go after his adversary returns it, and the ball fall on or between any one of these figures, they must change sides, for he will be then on the hazard-side to play for the first chace, which if he win by striking the ball so as to fall, after its first rebound, nearer to the dedans than the figure 1, without his adversary being able to return it from its first rebound, he wins a stroke, and then proceeds in like manner to win a second stroke, &c. If a ball fall on a line with the first gallery, door, second gallery, or last gallery, the chace is likewise called at such or such a place, naming the gallery, &c. When it is just put over the line, it is called a chace at the line. If the player on the service-side return a ball with such force as to strike the wall on the hazard-side, so as to rebound, after the first hop, over the line, it is also called a chace at the line.
The chaces on the hazard-side proceed from the ball being returned either too hard, or not hard enough: so that the ball, after its first rebound, falls on this side the line which describes the hazard-side chaces, in which case it is a chace at 1, 2, &c. provided there be no chace depending, and according to the spot where it exactly falls. When they change sides, the player, in order to win this chace, must put the ball over the line, any where, so that his adversary does not return it. When there is no chace on the hazard-side, all balls put over the line from the service-side, without being returned, reckon.
The game, instead of being marked one, two, three, four, is called for the first stroke, fifteen; for the second, thirty; for the third, forty; and for the fourth, game, unless the players get four strokes each; then, instead of calling it forty all, it is called deuce, after which, as soon as any stroke is got, it is called advantage; and in case the strokes become equal again, deuce again; till one or the other gets two strokes following, to win the game.
The odds at this game are very uncertain, on account of the chances: and various methods of giving odds have been used to render a match equal.
At the time when tennis play was taken up seriously by the nobility, new regulations were made in the game, and covered courts erected, wherein it might be practised without any interruption from the weather. In the sixteenth century tennis-courts were common in England, and the establishment of such places countenanced by the example of the monarchs.
We have undoubted authority to prove that Henry VII. was a tennis player. In a MS. register of his expenditures made in the thirteenth year of his reign, and preserved in the remembrancer’s office, this entry occurs:—“Item, for the king’s loss at tennis, twelve-pence; for the loss of balls, three-pence.” Hence one may infer, that the game was played abroad, for the loss of the balls would hardly have happened in a tennis court. His son Henry, who succeeded him, in the early part of his reign was much attached to this diversion; which propensity, as Hall assures us, “being perceived by certayne craftie persons about him, they brought in Frenchmen and Lombards to make wagers with hym, and so he lost muche money; but when he perceyved theyr crafte, he eschued the company and let them go.” He did not however give up the amusement, for we find him, according to the same historian, in the thirteenth year of his reign, playing at tennis with the Emperor Maximilian for his partner, against the prince of Orange and the marquis of Brandenborow: “the earl of Devonshire stopped on the prince’s side, and the lord Edmond on the other side; and they departed even handes on both sides, after eleven games fully played.”
James I., if not himself a tennis player, speaks of the pastime with commendation, and recommends it to his son as a species of exercise becoming a prince. Charles II. frequently diverted himself with playing at tennis, and had particular kind of dresses made for that purpose. So had Henry VIII. In the wardrobe rolls we meet with tenes-cotes for the king, also tennis-drawers and tennis-slippers.
A French writer speaks of a damsel Margot, who resided at Paris in 1424, and played at hand-tennis with the palm, and also with the back of her hand, better than any man; and what is most surprising, adds my author, at that time the game was played with the naked hand, or at best with a double glove.—Hoyle—Strutt.