Good old Aussies

Good Old Aussies

I find that generally Australian culture treads a fine line between healthy self confidence and self-centered arrogance. My guess is that this is why they excel in so many areas and punch above their weight internationally in sport and politics.

We encountered a few good examples of this in Melbourne. On the third night of the open, instead of the top seeds playing on the Rod Laver Arena, two unseeded Australians got the prime time slots Jelena Dokic and Bernard Tomic.

After reaching the third round Jelena Dokic is now being re-embraced by the Australian public after years in the wilderness. It would appear the Aussies are quick to forgive winners! A column in the ‘Herald Sun’ mentioned that usually the Australian public a slow to forgive and mentions Australia never forgiving the Americans for Phar lap! It is very big of them to take on an offence regarding a New Zealand horse!!

16 year old Bernard Tomic is an exciting tennis prospect, but ranked 768 in the world and playing an unseeded opponent was also on centre court. The decision to put these two players on Rod Laver was all about Australia, not tennis, but good on them.

When Roger Federer won his second round game, playing in the heat of the day instead of on the evening slot (making way for the Australia show) he was interviewed by Jim Courier. All the questions were designed to promote the Australian playing in the evening. “Thanks for coming and being a warm up act for our 16 year old 768th ranked tennis boy Roger, you little ripper!”

I was reading the 128 page Herald Sun and managed to find 6 pages on world events (3 of them photos of President Obama’s inauguration). The rest of the paper – an all Australia affair!

Well, that’s enough of Australians talking up Australia, what do you love about Australia!?

I do however prefer this than much of the self-defeating cynicism of home. I am looking forward to Australia Day on Monday. I am pretty sure that it will be slightly more celebratory than good old Waitangi Day.

Tennis

Going to the Australian Open tomorrow I decided to have a look at the history of the game.

It's predecessor- Real Tennis, surprised me a bit. Here is a bit from the wikipedia.

Real tennis is the original racquet sport from which the modern game of lawn tennis, or tennis, is descended. It is also known as jeu de paume in France, "court tennis" in the United States.
Real tennis is still played by enthusiasts on 47 existing courts in the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and France.

The term "tennis" derives from the French word tenez, which means "take heed" — a warning from the server to the receiver. Real tennis evolved over three centuries from an earlier ball game played around the 12th century in France. This had some similarities to handball, involving hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. One theory is that this game was played by monks in monastery cloisters based on the construction and appearance of early courts. By the 16th century, the glove had become a racquet, the game had moved to an enclosed playing area, and the rules had stabilized. Real tennis spread across Europe, with the Papal Legate reporting in 1596 that there were 250 courts in Paris alone, near the peak of its popularity in France.

In Victorian England real tennis had a revival but broad public interest shifted to the outdoor game of lawn tennis which quickly became the most popular form of the sport. Real tennis courts were built in Australia (1875) and in the United States starting in 1876 in Boston, followed by New York in 1890, and also at a few other athletic clubs.

The rules and scoring are similar to those of lawn tennis. Although in both sports game scoring is by fifteens (with the exception of 40, which was shortened from forty-five)), in real tennis six games wins a set, even if the opponent has five games. A match is typically best of five sets.
The balls are much less bouncy than a lawn tennis ball. The 27 inch (686 mm) long racquets are made of wood and use very tight strings to cope with the heavy ball. The racquet head is bent slightly to make it easier to strike balls close to the floor or in corners.

A real tennis court (jeu à dedans) is a very substantial building (a larger area than a lawn tennis court, with walls and a ceiling to contain all but the highest lob shots). It is enclosed by walls on all sides, three of which have sloping roofs (known as "penthouses") with various openings, and a buttress (tambour) off which shots may be played.. The courts are about 110 by 39 feet (33.5 × 11.9 m) including the penthouses, or about 96 by 32 feet (29.3 × 9.8 m) on the playing floor, varying by a foot or two per court. They are doubly asymmetric— not only is one end of the court different in the shape from the other, but the left and right sides of the court are also different.

The service happens from only one end of the court (the "service" end) and the ball must touch the penthouse above and to the left of the server once before touching the floor in the "hazard" (receiving) end of the court. There are numerous and widely differing styles of service, many with exotic names to distinguish them, such as "railroad", "bobble", "poop", "pique", "boomerang" and "giraffe".

The game has other complexities, including that when the ball bounces twice at the serving end the serving player does not generally lose the point outright. Instead a "chase" is called and the server gets the chance, later in the game currently being played, to replay the point from the other end, but under the obligation of ensuring every shot he plays has a second bounce further back from the net than the shot he failed to reach. A chase can also be called at the receiving ("hazard") end, but only on the half of that end nearest the net; this is called a "hazard" chase. Those areas of the court in which chases can be called are marked with lines running across the floor, from left to right, generally about 1-yard (0.91 m) apart - it is these lines that the chases are measured against. One result of this feature is that a player can gain the advantage of serving only through skillful play (viz. "laying" a "chase", which ensures a change of end). This is in marked contrast to lawn tennis where players alternately serve and receive entire games. It is thus not uncommon in real tennis to see a player serve for several consecutive games till a chase be made. Indeed, an entire match (theoretically) could be played with no change of service, the same player serving every point.

The heavy unbouncy balls take a great deal of spin, causing them to swerve when bounced off the walls, and a cutting stroke is often used to cause them to drop sharply off the back wall for the sake of a good chase.

Another twist to the game is the various windows below the penthouse roof that, in some cases, offer the player a chance to win the point instantly by hitting the ball into the opening. The largest window, located behind the server, is called the "Dedans" and must often be defended from hard hit shots (called "forces") coming from the receiving (called the "hazard") side of the court. The resulting strategy of long volleys and shots off the side walls and penthouse roof lead to many interesting shots not normally played in lawn tennis. However, because of the weight of the balls, the small racquets and the need to defend the rear of the court, lawn tennis strategies like serve and volley are rarely employed.