Racquets (sport)
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- For the individual piece of sports equipment, see Racquet. For the illegal business, see Racket (crime).
Racquets (American English) or rackets (British English) is an indoor racquet sport played in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. The sport is infrequently called "hard rackets," possibly to distinguish it from the related sport of squash (formerly called "squash rackets").
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[edit] Manner of play
Racquets is played in a 30 by 60 foot (9.14 × 18.28 m) enclosed court, with a ceiling at least 30 feet high. Singles and doubles are played on the same court. The equipment used are 30½ inch (775 mm) wooden racquets and a 1 7/16 inch (37 mm) hard white ball. The play is extremely fast, and potentially dangerous. Games are to 15 points, only the server can score — the receiver may serve after winning a rally. Matches are typically best of 5 games.
Because the game of squash rackets (now known as 'squash') began in the 19th century as an off-shoot of racquets, the sports were similar in manner of play and rules. However, the rules and scoring in squash have evolved in the last hundred years or so. Racquets has changed little; the main difference today is that players are now allowed brief rest periods between games. In the past, leaving the court could mean forfeiting the match, so players kept spare racquets, shirts, and shoes in the gutter below the telltale on the front wall.
The governing bodies are the Tennis and Rackets Association (UK) and the North American Racquets Association.
[edit] History
Racquets began as an 18th century pastime in London's King's Bench and Fleet debtors prisons. The prisoners modified the game of fives by using tennis racquets to speed up the action. They played against the prison wall, sometimes at a corner to add a sidewall to the game. Racquets then became popular outside the prison, played in alleys behind pubs. It spread to schools, first using school walls, and later with proper four-wall courts being specially constructed for the game. Some historians assert that the game was codified through its popularity at the Harrow School in London, where it was played as early as the second half of the 18th century.
Some private clubs also built courts. Along with real tennis and badminton, racquets was used as an inspiration for the game of lawn tennis, invented in 1873. A vacant racquets court built into the University of Chicago's Stagg Field served as the location of the first artificial nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942. The Stagg Field court is often mistakenly referenced as having been a "squash racquets" court. Racquets was part of the 1908 Summer Olympics program.
As happens with sports, interests shift. Today it is perhaps the most obscure and least approachable of racquet sports. Court upkeep, handmade balls, and breakable wooden racquets make it an expensive game. It also requires lessons and practice to play safely and enjoyably. On the other hand, many who take up the sport do so enthusiastically. There are about twenty courts in schools and private clubs in the United Kingdom. Schools - Charterhouse School, Cheltenham College, Clifton College, Eton College, Haileybury College, Harrow School, Malvern College, Marlborough College, Radley College, Rugby School, St Paul's School, Tonbridge School, Wellington College, Winchester College. Clubs - BRNC Dartmouth, Hayling Island, Manchester, Newcastle, Queens, RMA Sandhurst.
The United States has seven active courts (Chicago (two), Detroit, New York, Tuxedo, Philadelphia, Boston), and Canada one (in Montreal, the dominant city in Canada during the height of the British Empire). There is a another court in the YWCA in Detroit, which is unused. There was also a court in Cleaveland and in St Louis, both of which now house double squash courts. Philadelphia originally had two courts, the second now houses a double squash court. There may be unused courts elsewhere in the former British Empire that are still in good condition. Racquets is predominantly a male sport.
Disused Courts
The Tavern Club - 36th and Prospect Avenue Cleaveland Ohio USA
Belmont House - Wraxall Bristol UK
Built in the 1860s by Williams Gibbs, whom made his fortune out of guano bird droppings imported from the Pacific!. A popular Victorian garden fertilizer. It passed through the family and was last owned by the second Lord Wraxall.
[edit] Tournaments
The world championship for singles (and doubles) is decided in a challenge format. If the governing bodies accept the challenger's qualifications, he plays the reigning champion in a best of 14 games format (best of 7 games on each side of the Atlantic). If each player wins seven games, the total point score is used as a tie breaker. The current singles champion is Harry Foster. The current doubles champions are Guy Barker and Alister Robinson.
[edit] World Championship
Organized on a challenge basis, the first champion in 1820 was Robert Mackay (Great Britain).
[edit] Recent winners
- 2005– Harry Foster (Great Britain)
- 2001–5 James Male (Great Britain)
- 1999–2001 Neil Smith (Great Britain)
- 1988–99 James Male (Great Britain)
- 1986–8 John Prenn (Great Britain)
- 1984–6 William Boone (Great Britain)
- 1981–4 John Prenn (Great Britain)
- 1975–81 William Surtees (USA)
- 1973–4 Howard Angus (Great Britain)
- 1972–3 William Surtees (USA)
- 1954–72 Geoffrey Atkins (Great Britain)
- 1947–54 James Dear (Great Britain)
- 1937–47 Donald Milford (Great Britain)
- 1929–37 Charles Williams (Great Britain)
[edit] References
- Squires, Dick. The Other Racquet Sports New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. ISBN 0-07-060532-7
