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The court slants 5 degrees uphill. Because the players change sides every so often, there are now four different states a player can be in: "on serve uphill"; "on serve downhill", "off serve uphill" or "off serve downhill". This is more interesting than just "on serve" or "not on serve".
Serving
will probably be easier when facing uphill, since there is more room for the ball to land in the court (i.e. a more favorable range of angles to serve the ball which will land it in play). But volleying uphill will be more difficult as the net will be effectively higher.
The slopes will also make ball retrieval much easier; ball boys need never run across the court.
I am dubbing this sport Royal tennis, to improve the odds that someone will take it seriously.
Thank you.
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//Serving will probably be easier when facing uphill, since there is more room for the ball to land in the court.// How would there be more surface area to land the ball in just because you were facing uphill? There would be just as much surface area if you were facing downhill, right? |
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Make them play in a remote controlled, spinning, undulating, patterned dairy aquarium, pulled along on the back of a horse-drawn cart and call it "Underwater, Gipsy Twisting, Computerised Chess with Cheese and Lacrosse Sticks" |
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How about if the entire court was balanced on a central fulcrum so that the angle of play was in constant motion as the players move across the surface? Although the fulcrum would probably be no higher than 24 inches for safety purposes, the court would be able to pitch right, left, forwards, backwards and on the bias based on the relative positioning of the opponents to the center of the net. Planar movements would be fairly gradual since the mass of the court is so much greater than that of the players, however it would give each player the ability to strategize his movements for the greatest possible advantage against his opponent. |
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I'd finally have an advantage in [jurist]'s version... weight. |
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chef....there's not actually MORE surface area, but more useable surface area if you assume both players are the same height and have maximum achievable angles at which the served ball may descend from service side to the opposing court...if the maximum angles are equal...then the uphill court may have more 'useable area'--------
but this is nonsense, because the extra useable area in only the area that is closer to the net, and during service you have to place the ball in the box, and unless the court is unbelievably steep , the box is far enough away from the margins of the net as to be equivalent on both sides. |
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so you're right...the area is the same.
if anything, you get more speed on a serve going with gravity than against, so the uphill server has an advantage of speed in the serve. |
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Serving might be a tradeoff, since, when serving uphill it is easier to serve faster since you can serve more horizontally than usual and still land it "in", but then the bounce is slower. Downhill you have to serve slower but the bounce is bigger. |
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//I'd finally have an advantage in [jurist]'s version...// Presumably you mean that playing from behind the baseline would allow you to use your heavier weight to continuously keep your end of the court tilted down. Therefore, you will always be hitting the ball upwards against gravity, causing you to tire more quickly, and you are going to hate my net game! You may want to rethink that play strategy. |
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Royal Tennis is already in existence. It is played in a wooden-walled court with sloping walls, which form part of the court surface, similar to squash or racquetball courts. |
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Personally, I think the advantage to the server is currently greater than best serves the existing game. This idea will make that advantage even greater, prolonging matches unnecessarily. |
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//Therefore, you will always be hitting the ball upwards against gravity...// Fortunately, I'm taller than 48 inches so gravity would still be on my side. |
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Make both sides of the court slope down away from the net. Just enough that a dropped ball will roll back off the court, I'd say. Both ends would be the same, then, and serving would be tougher. Hmm, maybe lower the net so it seems the same apparent height from mid-court. |
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