Sport

The Tennis Courts of Lyon: Les Jeux de Paume de Lyon by Richard Travers

Item: The Tennis Courts of Lyon: Les Jeux de Paume de Lyon
Author: Colin Nettelbeck

by Colin Nettelbeck •

May 2012, no. 341

Oryx Publishing, $69 hb, 157 pp, 9780980743548

Sport

The Tennis Courts of Lyon: Les Jeux de Paume de Lyon by Richard Travers

by Colin Nettelbeck •

May 2012, no. 341

Practitioners of real (or royal) tennis have with their game the special relationship that comes with being a small group of initiates. There are probably fewer than ten thousand of them in the world, gathered in the four countries where the ancient sport survives on no more than fifty active courts. Individually and collectively, they appear to feel, beyond the passion with which they master the complex rules and techniques of the actual playing, a responsibility for protecting, maintaining, and extending detailed knowledge of the six centuries or so of the game’s history. It is indeed an unusual microcosm, but it is full of intriguing connections with some major historical figures and moments.

Colin Nettelbeck

By this contributor

Colin Nettelbeck is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne, where he held the A.R. Chisholm Chair of French. He taught previously at the University of California (Berkeley) and Monash University. He has written extensively about twentieth-century and contemporary French literature, cinema, and cultural history, with special focus on the French experience of World War II. His most recent book is Dancing with de Beauvoir: Jazz and the French, published by Melbourne University Press in 2004. His essay ‘Kneecapper: a Trip to Happiness’ (published in the Autumn 2011 Meanjin Quarterly) was shortlisted for the 2010 Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay. He was awarded second prize in the 2012 Calibre Prize for ‘Now They’ve Gone’.