Real Tennis: An ancient game once played by Henry VIII enthrals and confuses spectators

The sport of kings is still alive at Hampton Court Palace in London, where the world’s oldest real tennis court still used for major competition stands on the site of a court built for Henry VIII. These days, its king and queen are British-Australian married couple Claire and Rob Fahey. The pair are among the biggest names in the ancient indoor game played off sloping roofs, galleries and walls, with rules that make lawn tennis look simple. Rob, 58, is a record 13-time men’s world champion, while Claire, 35, became the youngest women’s world champion at 19 and has dominated the sport for more than a decade. This week, Hampton Court is hosting the Champions Trophy, a six-day professional tournament first staged in 2017. Eight players entered qualifying for two places alongside six seeds in the main draw, with Claire the only woman in the field — she competes against men in unrestricted events — and Rob entering as the third seed. Sitting outside the clubhouse — as he waits for his quarter-final against top-seeded 39-year-old Nick Howell — Rob laughs when he hears the Royal comparison from the members of the club. “It’s not at all true — although maybe it is in this tiny little world,” he says. “It’s been a long time since I was the best player. Now I just enjoy watching my wife smash everybody up and do incredibly well.” The tennis court resembles a medieval street brought indoors, which is roughly where the game began. Real tennis dates to at least the 13th century, and one of the earliest written references to a purpose-built court comes from Valencia, Spain, in 1298, centuries before rackets were introduced. Henry VIII was far from the game’s only Royal devotee as Henry V, James V of Scotland and Charles II all played, while later enthusiasts included Prince Albert, Edward VII and George V. So this lavish estate where English Royalty once resided, which sits beside the River Thames, around 12 miles south-west of central London, is the ideal venue for this week’s tournament. Hampton Court’s head professional traditionally lives beside the court, continuing an arrangement that dates back to the Keeper of the King’s Tennis Courts. Nick Wood runs the 320-member club from an apartment above it. The court can operate from 6.30am until 10pm, so the sounds of play follow him home. “You get used to living on the job and feeling like you’re on the job 24/7,” Wood says. “I can hear Julian Webb, one of our members, who has particularly squeaky shoes. We’ve also got one lady who shrieks at the top of her voice.” Lesley Ronaldson knows the arrangement well. The former women’s world championship finalist moved into the rooms beside the court in 1979 with her then-husband Chris, the men’s world champion and Hampton Court’s head professional. “We stayed for 27 years,” Ronaldson says. “But since we moved — just across the river — I’m still here all the time, doing tours, stringing rackets and sewing balls.” Stepping inside from the sweltering summer heat, the temperature drops as the court’s thick walls keep the temperature cool. Around 20 spectators are sitting on narrow wooden benches behind netting. Conversations fall away before each point, and they wait until the players change ends before standing or shuffling past one another. From the upper gallery, reached by a wooden staircase, it’s easy to see the high walls which enclose the court, as well as the sloping roof and dark wooden openings. An 1859 prize racket hangs in the next room with its original strings and velvet handle. The scoring of 15, 30 and 40 is familiar. Everything surrounding it is not. A serve must strike the penthouse roof on the receiver’s side before dropping into the service area, while the walls remain in play. The openings around the court are targets. Hitting the dedans, the large netted gallery behind the server, or the smaller grille in the opposite corner wins the point immediately. So does finding the winning gallery, which rings a bell, while the angled tambour wall can send the ball sharply across court. The most unusual rule is the chase. When the ball bounces twice in certain areas, the rally ends but the point is not awarded. The marker records where the second bounce landed, and the players later change ends to complete it. The opponent must make the second bounce land closer to the back wall than the original chase. “It sounds like there are a thousand rules, but there aren’t,” Rob says. “Give it four or five hours, until you understand what is happening, and it is actually quite simple.” Each ball is handmade by club professionals, beginning with pieces of old wine cork bound together and wrapped tightly in webbing and wool before a yellow cover is stitched around the outside. The finished ball is slightly smaller than a lawn-tennis ball but, at around 70 grams, roughly a quarter heavier and far less bouncy. Players strike it with a small wooden racket with an asymmetrical head, which helps them reach low balls and control rebounds from the walls. Ronaldson is less reassuring. “It’s an easy game to play badly and a difficult game to play well,” she says. “You only need to know one type of serve, but you need to know how to receive 29.” Good lawn-tennis players often expect their skills to transfer immediately, Rob says, only to find that the heavy ball, crooked racket and rebounds demand a different approach. Roger Federer adapted better than most when he visited during Wimbledon in 2005. Chris Ronaldson explained the rules during the car journey and Federer’s experience of squash helped him use the walls, although he later lost to his wife, Mirka. “He was very good,” Ronaldson says. When a journalist asked why the couple had not shaken hands afterwards, Federer replied: “Why should I? She’s my wife, and she beat me.” Newcomers tend either to reject the game or become absorbed by it. “People catch the bug really badly,” Rob says. “Very few come in and decide they’ll play occasionally. It tends to be: ‘This is amazing, and I’m all in’.” Wood describes real tennis as “addictively difficult” and padel as “addictively easy.” “You have to find it difficult and still want to come back because you feel you can succeed,” he says. Padel, a doubles game played on a smaller enclosed court where the walls can be used, has expanded rapidly as an accessible alternative to tennis. Ronaldson says the growing sport has not taken members away and, instead, members bring padel players to Hampton Court. “It’s so interesting, and there’s much more to it,” she says. Participation data suggest the sport is more than a historical curiosity. The Tennis & Rackets Association published that more than 4,800 players recorded a competitive result during the 2025-26 season, including 550 women — the largest active playing population recorded this century. The median active player is 53, up from 47 in 2005, while under-25s account for 11.3 percent of the player base, down from 16.1 percent in 2015-16. There are 46 active courts worldwide: 27 in Britain, 10 in the United States, six in Australia and three in France. Hampton Court could accommodate another 20 or 30 members, Wood says, but the court is used for more than 15 hours on some days. Its position inside the palace gives real tennis an audience most clubs do not have. Visitors stop at the galleries, often assuming they are watching squash, while stewards explain the game. “We’re very much a public court because we get a lot of footfall from palace visitors,” Wood says. “We take that role seriously and want to promote the game to as many people as possible.” London has courts at Hampton Court, Queen’s Club and Lord’s, but the latter two are inside private members’ clubs. “We don’t want to appear to be saying, ‘The doors are closed and you can’t play because we’re too busy or too elitist’,” Wood says. “We want to move away from that history and make the game open.” The professional circuit operates more like a community than a major tour. Visiting players can stay in members’ homes and competitors take turns marking matches. “There’s still that lovely atmosphere of how lawn tennis used to be,” Ronaldson says. “You could travel around the world and people from other clubs would put you up.” Players also assess the professionals who mark their matches. Their grades determine whether a marker moves up or down the rankings, which can affect their pay — typically around £40 ($53) per match. “You might have the winner saying, ‘He did a brilliant job’, and the loser saying, ‘He cost me the match. I hate that guy’,” Rob says. When Howell and Rob enter the court for their quarter-final, spectators settle onto the wooden benches and conversations stop. Soon after play begins, the marker calls a chase. Several visitors turn toward the stewards for an explanation, but the regulars thrive on the complexity of the sport. “The best sales pitch isn’t ours,” Wood says. “The game will sell itself to you.”